The Case for Assessing for Negative Response Bias, Not Malingering

Rubenzer, Steve

doi:10.1080/24732850.2020.1732767

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…1 This paper will focus primarily on Acklin's statement that malingering was ruled out and why I don't believe it is warranted. Rather than using the term malingering, which has many disadvantages when used in a forensic setting (Rubenzer, 2020), I will use the terms feigning or negative response bias in this paper. noted several motives for claiming amnesia despite the fact it does not provide a solid defense or claim of incompetency: Feigned amnesia may elicit sympathy from family or jury members, create doubt about guilt, and/or diminish perceived blameworthiness.…”

Section: Acklin Concludedmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ruling out feigned crime‐related amnesia? A response to Acklin (2022)

Rubenzer

2023

Behavioral Sci & The Law

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In a recent paper, Acklin discussed a case of possible amnesia for a murder in terms of neurobiology, psychoanalysis, and personality assessment. Acklin accepted the defendant's claim of amnesia for the crime as genuine. The considerable literature that takes a skeptical view of crime-related amnesia was not cited, and the possibility of feigning or malingering was "ruled out" with a single sentence that does not withstand scrutiny. A review of the literature on feigned amnesia suggests that it may not be possible to rule out malingering even if the best available tools are used: There has been minimal investigation of most validity tests and estimates of base rates of feigned amnesia for a crime vary widely and make estimates of Negative Predictor Power highly unreliable. Although one cannot know from the information presented if Acklin's defendant legitimately experienced amnesia, feigning could not be ruled out using an interview and the test data cited by Acklin. I call for a moratorium on publication of further articles on crime specific amnesia that do not conscientiously examine other potential explanations and do not use current best practices for assessing negative response bias.

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Section: Acklin Concludedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This paper will focus primarily on Acklin's statement that malingering was ruled out and why I don't believe it is warranted. Rather than using the term malingering , which has many disadvantages when used in a forensic setting (Rubenzer, 2020), I will use the terms feigning or negative response bias in this paper.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ruling out feigned crime‐related amnesia? A response to Acklin (2022)

Rubenzer

2023

Behavioral Sci & The Law

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“…In many cases, the cause of response bias is unclear. More important, though, is its effect, which is to render test data and other similar data invalid (Rubenzer, 2020). If response bias is not considered even minimally in a given evaluation, the validity of the data interpreted cannot be assured.…”

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confidence: 99%

Symptom validity indices in the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM‐5

Shura,

Rowland,

Miskey

et al. 2023

Journal of Traumatic Stress

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The use of symptom validity tests (SVTs) is standard practice in psychodiagnostic assessments. Embedded measures are indices within self‐report measures. To date, no embedded SVTs have been identified in the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM‐5 (PCL‐5). This research aimed to develop and validate PCL‐5 SVTs in two samples of veterans. Participants completed one of two prospective research studies that included cognitive and psychological tests. Participants in Study 1 were veterans (N = 464) who served following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; participants in Study 2 were veterans or service members (N = 338) who had been deployed to Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Both studies included the PCL‐5 and the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS), the latter of which served as the criterion for identifying PCL‐5 SVTs. For Study 1, two separate SVTs were developed: the PCL‐5 Symptom Severity scale (PSS), based on the PCL‐5 total score, and the PCL‐5 Rare Items scale (PRI), based on PCL‐5 items infrequently endorsed at the highest item ratings. At the most conservative SIMS cutoff score, the PSS achieved excellent discrimination for both the Study 1, AUC = .840, and Study 2 samples, AUC = .858, with specific cutoff scores of ≥ 51 and ≥ 56 maximizing sensitivity while maintaining a specificity of .90. The PRI achieved good discrimination, AUCs = .760 and.726, respectively, with a cutoff score of 2 or higher indicated by both studies. The results of these two studies provide provisional support for these two embedded SVTs in the PCL‐5.

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