The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventories

Abstract

Abstract The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) family of assessment instruments now includes six versions in its history, which dates back formally to 1943. Current versions are the MMPI-3 (2020) for adults and the MMPI-A-RF (2016) for adolescents. These are multiscale instruments that are standardized, normed self-report questionnaires with a true–false response format. Earlier versions of the MMPI were developed to assess traditional syndromes or “disorders”; current versions have been restructured to align with emerging hierarchical–dimensional models of psychological dysfunction, such as the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology. The MMPI instruments are widely used in both inpatient and outpatient clinical settings as well as many specialized settings, including medical and forensic applications (e.g., child custody evaluations, presurgical evaluations, and police candidate evaluations). This chapter offers a brief description of MMPI history and the previous versions of the test, with more detailed description of the two current versions.