MMPI and Rorschach: Three decades of research.

Abstract

According to previous research, the Rorschach and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) are the most widely used personality tests in clinical practice. Our purpose is to determine their status as research instruments. Research references on the two tests were counted for each year from 1950 to 1985 in order to provide a more detailed look at the trends noted by Reynolds and Sundberg (1976) and to test the prediction by those authors that research on personality tests would decline after 1971. Results show that there was a decline between 1971 and 1975. However, the number of Rorschach references leveled off after 1975, and there was a resurgence of interest in MMPI research. Recent data suggest that both tests continue to be popular topics for published research.

What Have Surveys Taught Us About the Teaching and Practice of Psychological Assessment?

“…Although some qualifying findings (e.g., O'Grady, 1988) have been reported, data largely indicate that the MMPI and Rorschach continue to be among the most popular (if they indeed are not the most popular) assessment methods to research (Lubin, Larsen, Matarazzo, & Seever, 1986b;Lubin rSr Lubin, 1912;Polyson, Peterson, & Marshall, 1986;Reynolds & Sundberg, 1976). The revision of the MMPI (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, TelPegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) and ever-growing prominence of Exner's Rorschach interpretive system Ritzler 6r Alter, 1986) will no doubt further contribute to increased research on these two assessment tools.…”

"MMPI and Rorschach: Three decades of research": A time series reanalysis.

“…Future research might focus on issues such as attitudes of therapists about using consent forms of substantial complexity, the percentage of therapists who have a systematic way of giving information orally, and which way of receiving information that consumers seem to prefer. Polyson, Peterson, and Marshall (1986) recently presented some interesting results concerning the yearly references to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Rorschach in Psychological Abstracts during the period 1950-1985. Using both the independent-samples t test and the Pearson product-moment r, Polyson et al reported on both the differences in number of references between the MMPI and the Rorschach for the decades 1950-1959, 1960-1969, and 1970-1979, and the correlation between the yearly number of references for the two measures over the entire 36year period.…”

“…A potentially serious problem with the inferential statistics reported by Polyson et al (1986) is the fact that the sample data may not meet the assumptions of the inferential procedures, and hence the resulting parameter estimates and accompanying probability values may be in error. The major potential violation of the assumptions underlying both the ( test and the Pearson correlation in this instance is independence of observations.…”

“…Polyson, Peterson, and Marshall (1986) recently presented some interesting results concerning the yearly references to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Rorschach in Psychological Abstracts during the period 1950–1985. Using both the independent-samples t test and the Pearson product—moment r , Polyson et al reported on both the differences in number of references between the MMPI and the Rorschach for the decades 1950–1959, 1960–1969, and 1970–1979, and the correlation between the yearly number of references for the two measures over the entire 36-year period.…”

“…My purpose is to reanalyze the data reported by Polyson et al (1986), using the time series analysis (I thank Jim Polyson for generously providing his data.) The particular method that I used was the Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average, or ARIMA ( p, d, q ), model.…”