Individual Interpretation Of Psychoneurotic Inventory Items

The K factor as a suppressor variable in the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.

“…It seems a reasonable enough possibility that there are individuals whose habitual ways of reacting to items are so different from their fellows that measurement of their personalities through the use of verbal items of this type would reflect the unusualness of their reactions to the items more than any clinical abnormality. This semantic factor has been treated more completely elsewhere (Benton, 1935;Eisenberg, 1941;Meehl, 1945b). In so far as such a possibility may exist we have not yet separated it from the clinically more important abnormality expressed in the Sc scale.…”

“…semantic variation), lead to score deviations that are misleading. Such problems have been investigated by Benton (1935), Eisenberg (1941), and Eisenberg and Wesman (1941).…”

Response Processes and Relative Location of Subject and Item

“…A Model of the Response Processes In addition to the above authors, several others have isolated characteristics of response processes, such as ambiguousness, equivocality, and reinterpretation, which could be termed inappropriate (Benton, 1935;Eisenberg, 1941;Tyler, 1965). Apparently only Turner (1966;Turner and Fiske, 1968) has attempted to develop a relatively comprehensive model of response processes.…”

Item Quality and Appropriateness of Response Processes

“…Benton (1935) demonstrated that the same item is given a variety of interpretations by subjects. But Eisenberg (1941) found that subjects may give different responses with the same reason and the same interpretation of the item. In another paper, Eisenberg and Wesman (1941) related stability of interpretation to stability of response.…”

“…Benton (1935) demonstrated that the same item is given a variety of interpretations by subjects. But Eisenberg (1941) found that subjects may give different responses with the same reason and the 1 We are indebted to Thomas Tyler for originating the approach on which this study was based, to Barbara Turner for serving as a rater and helping in many other ways, and to Dr. Vivian Lipman and Dr. Eli Lipman for providing the subjects.…”