Journal of personality assessment
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Increasingly, investigations evaluating the effectiveness of the MMPI-2 in the assessment of malingering employ methodologies whereby research participants are asked to feigned specific disorders rather than just to "fake bad." Yet there is little research addressing the issue of whether different validity scales and indicators work differently in the detection of different feigned disorders. In this study the comparative effectiveness of a number of validity scales and indicators on the MMPI-2 to assess feigned depression and feigned schizophrenia were evaluated. Overall, the validity scales and indicators were better at detecting feigned schizophrenia than they were in detecting feigned depression, attributable, most likely, to closer familiarity with depressive experiences. The validity scales F, Fb, and F(p) best distinguish patients with schizophrenia from participants feigning schizophrenia, and F and Fb best distinguish patients with depression from participants feigning depression.
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A sample of 408 patients with substance use disorders was equally divided into derivation and cross-validation samples. All patients had taken the MMPI-2. ⋯ Confirmatory factor analyses in cross-validation demonstrated a good fit for both models and for their combination in a 5-factor measurement model. Latent variable correlations in the 5-factor model helped explain the high correlation and low discriminant validity of ANX and DEP.