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Validity indicator on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and its revisions, designed to detect overreporting of symptoms. This index is calculated by subtracting the raw score of the K scale from the raw score of the F scale. The original cutoff set by Gough (1947) for overreporting was nine. However, the literature reports disparate results for the sensitivity and specificity of this cutoff. Given that the F scale is indicative of actual psychopathology, the F minus K scale is likely to produce a high false positive rate. As a result, this scale may be one of the less-desirable measures of overreporting of symptoms. Despite this limitation, the F and K scales, either alone or in combination, may still be utilized to aid the clinical neuropsychologist in determining the patient’s response style, particularly on the clinical interview and subjective self-report measures. With these validity scores, the clinician can...
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References and Readings
Gass, C. (2006). Use of the MMPI-2 in neuropsychological evaluations. In J. Butcher (Ed.), MMPI-2: A practitioner’s guide (pp. 301–326). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Gough, H. G. (1947). Simulated patterns on the MMPI. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 42, 215–225.
Lezak, M. D., Howieson, D. B., & Loring, D. W. (2004). Neuropsychological assessment (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
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Temple, R. (2011). F Minus K Index. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_1981
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_1981
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