Relations and Meaning of the New MMPI Scales

Abstract

The judgments that produced scales most plentiful in MMPI items were those concerned with dependency, masochism (getting disappointed and rejected by people), lack of confidence, guilt feeling, and general dissatisfaction, a group that has been labeled “the oral syndrome” or “disappointed dependency.” These scales are highly correlated with each other, with Welsh's A, and with uncorrected Pt. Evidence shows that scales of this group are related both to the criteria of cross-validated clinical judgments of behavior and personality processes and to the response set of readiness to give undesirable, sick-sounding answers. Consideration of the relationships between measures of guilt feeling and measures of self-control against antisocial action, as plotted in two dimensions, solves some problems posed by Mowrer. Scales of particular interest were those of repression or hysterical character; of orderliness, compulsiveness or reaction formation; of sadism or controllingness; and of concern with what people think. Those scales were notable for having a high portion of variance not related to Factor Scales A and R, or to the oral syndrome; and for being resistent to distortion by response sets.