Date of Award

1985

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to refine methods of detecting malingering of psychosis by forensic patients. The most effective measures of malingering to date were the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) F and F-K Indices. The literature, based on simulation research, was deficient in confirmatory work with true forensic malingerers. Further, the Projective Simulation Test (PST) had shown promise with simulators, but had not been used with malingerers. In this study, 50 prisoners volunteered from Hunt Correctional Institute, St. Gabriel, Louisiana, and were randomly assigned within reading groups to serve in Standard Instruction and Simulator groups, and 50 volunteers from Feliciana Forensic Facility, Jackson, Louisiana, were designated the Malingerer and Schizophrenic groups. Simulators were given instructions to respond as an insane person would, while the other three groups were given standard instructions. The MMPI is the best overall method of detecting malingering. The Malingerer group earned scores elevated beyond the published cuts of the F Scale and the F-K Index on the MMPI. Optimal cut scores of F 22 and F-K 10 were determined for this sample. Concurrent validity was not established for the PST with the MMPI. A combination of weighted measures discriminated Malingerers from Schizophrenics better than any single scale did, and the most powerful independent variables in the linear equation were MMPI F-K Index, IQ and PST X+%, in that order. A comparison of the performance of Malingerers on the various scales with that of the analog group showed Malingerers and Simulators are similar but not identical groups.

Pages

152

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_disstheses.4166

Download

Share

COinS