NCJ Number
123496
Journal
Behavioral Sciences and the Law Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Dated: (Winter 1990) Pages: 75-84
Date Published
1990
Length
19 pages
Annotation
The MMPI and Bender Gestalt tests are administered to inmates, who are provided incentives to fake insanity or mental illness, and to mental patients to determine the accuracy of such tests in predicting when inmates are faking mental deficiencies. The two groups are tested along with appropriate control groups.
Abstract
The study attempts to use tests that examine mental deficiency and personality disorders to capture different aspects of potentially faked behavior. Discriminant analysis was performed to predict each subject group's membership. The battery of tests were found to detect fakers more accurately than any one test by itself, but the overall incidence of false positives was found to be relatively high. Also, age was cited as a possible confounding factor that was not controlled in the present study. As a conclusion, it was claimed that flaws aside, the study supported the hypothesis that a battery of tests that examine different aspects of personality are better predictors of faking or malingering than any one specific test. 3 tables and 28 references.