Model for the effects of invalid styles of response

ABSTRACT

Over the last 20–25 years, considerable research has been devoted to the development of the science involved with detecting invalid symptom presentations and performances in psychological and neuropsychological examinations. Early work on these concepts drove the construction and validation of several measures of symptom and performance validity leading to the eventual utilization of these measures to establish base rates across various populations. More recent works have sought to demonstrate correlations between select domains and researchers have further labored to investigate the real world costs of invalid response styles. In this article, a hierarchical model is developed to explain and classify the manifestations and consequences of invalid responding. The primary goals of this work are (a) to outline a model characterizing the pervasive implications of select styles of invalid responding and (b) to provide a heuristic for the development of research on secondary and tertiary consequences of such response styles across health care evaluations.

KEYWORDS:

• Hierarchical model
• invalid response style
• malingering
• performance validity testing
• symptom exaggeration

Acknowledgments

The views, opinions, and/or findings contained in this article are those of the authors and should not be construed as an official Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or U.S. Government position, policy or decision unless so designated by other official documentation.

The authors would like to thank Dr. Lloyd Flaro for his suggestions on improving the graphic representation of the model and Dr. Michael Chafetz for his insightful editorial comments.