“False feigners”: Examining the impact of non-content-based invalid responding on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Restructured Form content-based invalid responding indicators.

Abstract

Misinterpretation of non-content-based invalid (e.g., random, fixed) responding as overreporting or underreporting is likely to adversely impact test interpretation and could bias inferences about examinee intentions. We examined the impact of non-content-based invalid responding on the following Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) content-based invalid responding indicators: Infrequent Responses (F-r), Infrequent Psychopathology Responses (FP-r), Infrequent Somatic Responses (FS), Symptom Validity (FBS-r), Response Bias Scale (RBS), Uncommon Virtues (L-r), and Adjustment Validity (K-r). In 4 samples from which invalid responders were excluded, we systematically inserted increasing percentages of random, acquiescent, or counter-acquiescent item responses ranging from 0% to 100% and examined the impact that non-content-based invalid response styles had on the content-based invalid responding indicators. F-r, FP-r, FS, RBS, and L-r were susceptible to non-content-based invalid responding, whereas FBS-r and K-r were unaffected. Individuals with Variable Response Inconsistency (VRIN-r) and True Response Inconsistency (TRIN-r) elevations were removed, and the frequencies of content-based invalid responding elevations were then reexamined for false indications of feigning. Findings were consistent across samples and emphasize the need to screen for non-content-based invalid responding before screening for content-based invalid responding in the assessment of personality and psychopathology. VRIN-r and TRIN-r were useful in detecting most-but not all-cases of non-content-based invalid responding. A small but meaningful percentage of the remaining individuals were misclassified as overreporters (i.e., false feigners) by FP-r and FS. Clinicians should interpret FP-r and FS with some caution in the presence of moderate levels of non-content-based invalid responding. Post hoc examinations of scale characteristics indicated that the most susceptible scales were brief, consisted of rarely endorsed items, included a relatively high percentage of true-keyed items, and required a low percentage of endorsed items to reach clinical significance. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Impact of Validity Screening on Associations Between Self-Reports of Bullying Victimization and Student Outcomes

“…Despite their frequency of use, self-reports are rarely cross-checked for accuracy and are susceptible to invalid responses. In the psychoeducational literature, invalid responses are often characterized as resulting from insincere respondents, respondents that choose to purposefully distort (e.g., lie) their responses in order to provide more (or less) favorable ratings of their circumstances (Burchett et al, 2015), rebellious responders that purposefully provide a particular response pattern because they find it amusing (Fan et al, 2006), and careless or rapid responders who are inattentive to the survey items (Meade & Craig, 2012). Failure to identify and remove these respondents from analytic samples prior to analysis has been found to contaminate substantive conclusions regarding the prevalence rates of risk behaviors in younger samples (Cornell et al, 2012; Cornell, Lovegrove, et al, 2014; Fan et al, 2002, 2006).…”

An Inventory of Problems–29 (IOP–29) study investigating feigned schizophrenia and random responding in a British community sample

“…When an SVT includes items describing rare symptoms or unlikely behaviors and attitudes, a bona fide responder may inadvertently endorse these items, as pathological individuals are more likely than non-pathological individuals to endorse rare complaints on these types of tests (Greiffenstein & Baker, 2008;Rogers & Bender, 2018;Slick, Sherman, Grant, & Iverson, 1999). Consequently, if the response-pattern appears random-like, test scales which address overreporting of symptoms and problems may be artificially inflated (Burchett et al, 2016).…”

Assessing Negative Response Bias: a Review of the Noncredible Overreporting Scales of the MMPI-2-RF and MMPI-3

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