Week 5

Question 1

Why Restructure the Clinical Scales?

Answer 1

“While they contain compelling informative items, it has long been recognized that as aggregate measures the Clinical Scales are not psychometrically optimal:”

• Higher than expected intercorrelations
• Substantial item overlap
• Heterogeneous, over-inclusive item content

wanted to take out demoralization, was too heavily influencing everything

Question 2

The Restructured Clinical Scales

Answer 2

Removed the pervasive negative emotionality from the clinical scales in order to get cleaner scales

The expectation was that the restructured clinical scales would be more clinically distinct than the original Clinical Scales.

Question 3

New RCD Scales

Answer 3

**AKA took out unhappiness from scales
Ex. RC2 is depression without unhappiness
RC3 is hysteria without unhappiness

RCD “Demoralization” factor (Negative Emotionality)
RC1 Somatic Complaints,
RC2 Low Positive Emotions
RC3 Cynicism
RC4 Antisocial Behavior
RC5A *Aesthetic/Literary Interests
RC5M *Mechanical/Physical Interests
RC6 Ideas of Malevolence
RC7 Dysfunctional Negative Emotions
RC8 Aberrant Experiences
RC9 Hypomanic Activation.

no restructured scale for Si–because it was not as permeated with demoralization factor.

Question 4

MMPI-2 RC Scales: Psychometrics

Answer 4

MORE PURE

Tellegen et al. (2003) present data from several clinical samples documenting that in comparison with their Clinical Scale counterparts, the RC Scales show:

Comparable or improved reliability

Substantially reduced saturation with Demoralization

Substantially reduced inter-correlations

Comparable or improved convergent validity

Substantially improved discriminant validity