What Do the MMPI Scales Fundamentally Measure? Some Hypotheses

Abstract

I consider the question of whether all psychopathological behaviors can, on an evolutionary foundation, be considered as positive adaptations. I proposed that higher functions can be differentiated from their associated emotional modulations at simultaneous subjective, behavioral, and neural levels and that organizing analyses in this way will enable us to fill in our understanding of both the effects and relief of traumatic experiences. I then present each of the 8 clinical scales of the MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) as a dimension of positive adaptation with simultaneous cognitive-emotional, operant-classical, and neocortical-limbic elements. A variety of life-experience paradigms are then offered to explain the factors that operate to increase MMPI scale elevations as well as countermeasures that can operate to reduce such elevations. Understanding all such behaviors as adaptive leads to a notable enhancement of empathy.