The Trials of Separating Bath Water From Baby: A Review and Critique of the MMPI–2 Restructured Clinical Scales

Abstract

I review the development of the new set of MMPI–2 scales, the Restructured Clinical (RC) Scales (Tellegen et al., 2003). I identify several conceptual and methodological flaws in the construction of these scales, and I discuss the influence of a central shortcoming, the use of an atypical and depressively biased marker for unwanted ("first-factor") variance and its consequences for the RC Scales. I criticize the monograph introducing and describing the development of these scales for multiple important omissions. I provide examples of RC Scales in which relevant variances were overextracted or underextracted in the process of their construction. I introduce and apply the concept of "construct drift" to the RC Scales corresponding to the MMPI–2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) Clinical Scales, Psychasthenia and Hypomania. I conclude that the RC Scales are highly redundant with and function as routinely scored Content scales and that their designation as Clinical Scales is at best tenuous. I present two more appropriate, unbiased markers for the first factor along with the description of several nonintrusive strategies for increasing the independence of the Clinical Scales without compromising their syndromal fidelity.