| With the widespread use of personality questionnaires in the mental health field today, it is important that these questionnaires demonstrate validity in measuring what they purport to measure. The MMPI-2, one of the most widely researched and utilized of the personality questionnaires, has generally been found to be valid. However, because of item overlap common between the MMPI-2 clinical scales, it has been criticized for having weak discriminant validity. The Restructured Clinical (RC) scales were created to improve the discriminant validity of the MMPI-2 standard clinical scales by reducing the item overlap between these scales. This research examines correlations between the RC scales and the PAI clinical scales to study how these scales compare in their measure of similar constructs. Eighty-three sets of MMPI-2 and PAT questionnaires completed by graduate clinical psychology students were used in the current study. Results indicated that many of the RC scales demonstrated significant correlations with PAI scales measuring similar constructs. However, the PAI was found to be more comprehensive than the RC scales in the types of traits the scales measured. |
