Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> The RC scales wound
up really being
the core of what eventually became the MMPI-2-RF.
Before we moved to the RF itself,
perhaps we can talk a little bit more about
this construct of demoralization that
played such a central role in the restructuring of
the clinical scales and in our work later with the RF.
It had appeared demoralization had.
Frank, of course, talked about it in
the context of psychotherapy,
but MMPI users and
researchers did talk about
the construct using other labels.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> The same measure
came under different labels.
For example, one famous scale,
the Welch's A scale,
A stands for anxiety
was essentially demoralization scale.
If you look at the content of the A scale,
most of it is about general unhappiness,
and then psychologists can explain everything easily.
Then the explanation was that
underlying the content was actually anxiety,
drawing on Freud's psychodynamic notions
that all neuroses are driven by anxiety.
The A scale was a disguised demoralization scale.
Then there were other scales like that.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> Well,
even Hathaway had talked about
how it was too much depression.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> Hathaway in his chapters,
would talk about that
many of the skills measure depression.
But he equated depression with demoralization.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> What we would call demoralization.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> It's important to
realize that in the meantime,
in the research literature,
it became more and more clear that
demoralization and true depression
are not the same thing.
That what characterizes actual depression is anhedonia,
the loss of pleasure.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> In
cases of major depression?
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> In case of major depression.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> Indeed,
that's what you found. When you
restructured the depression scale,
you removed demoralization and found that.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> That's how, in fact,
the RC scales were developed.
I would take one of
the clinical scales and measure it together with
the demoralization scale and then identify
what in the clinical skill, what not demoralization.
You look at the depression scale,
it's clearly the lack of pleasure.
That made our work be much more in sync with what was
developing outside the MMPI,
in the world of psychopathology.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> That really was one of
our primary goals when we
moved to the restructured form was to link.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> Reconnect.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> The tests.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> Psychology, the MMPI
with contemporary psychological thought.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> Because as the focus
shifted to cotypes,
theory really was more or less abandoned.
The focus was almost exclusively on
empirical corelates they worked.
It certainly provided useful information,
but it was really not possible to link.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> It's not connected to the test of.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> The broader literature.
When we did the validation analysis and
the final modifications of the RC scales,
it became clear to us that other constructs could
be assessed through a similar restructuring process,
and that really was what led
us to work on the restructured form.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> On the RF.
Because the RC scales only
capture one important component of each clinical scale.
But these clinical scales had other important components
that we captured in what we did subsequently
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> Of course,
you had initially developed
some interpersonal scales that we
decided to come back to and did at that point.
It was an iterative process that
ultimately produced the RF.
One of the unique features, I think,
of the MMPI-2-RF is
the hierarchical structure of the inventory,
which very much parallels
contemporary thinking about psychopathology.
With the restructured form, we have
the three levels of
measurement represented by the higher order scales,
the restructured clinical scales,
and the specific problems scales.
What were some of your thoughts,
especially beginning with the higher order scales,
and then we can move down the hierarchy?
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> I think this was
patterned and not just by
the MMPI people. By others as well.
I was patterned by the model of intelligence,
where the measurement of intelligence
started with one general dimension, general intelligence.
Then people began to
discover there also special abilities,
variable ability, practical ability, spatial ability.
Then even that could be further refined,
like the performance IQ could be
broken down in specific sub scales that were
very sensitive to particular brain injury, for example.
That model, I think,
came to mind in
the construction of personality inventories.
There may be an overall dimension of maladjustment, even.
There's this psychologist,
Rushton, who thinks there's a general factor of IQ.
It's of personality.
It's controversial has not been widely accepted,
but it's that model.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> It's possible.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> But in our own work,
we think the broadest level
is probably three broad dimensions,
referring to how people feel,
how they think, and how they act,
which makes intuitive sense because that's
how we often talk about one another.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> Hence
the three scales, emotional,
internalizing dysfunction,
thought dysfunction, and behavior.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> Behavior.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> Externalizing dysfunction.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> It's about feeling actions
and thoughts, those three.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> Indeed,
you've made the point that
these are not new concepts.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> No. They go back
to Plato and to Immanuel Kant,
and you find it everywhere.
There are areas of focus.
A person behaves badly.
But then, if you want to
understand in what way and why perhaps,
then you need to refine it.
At the next level,
we had RC scales.
But then below that level,
we had specific problem scales.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> They give us
the most narrowly focused assessment
of targeted areas of potential dysfunction,
in terms of somatic and cognitive complaints,
internalizing problems, externalizing difficulties.
Of course, we also have
the interpersonal functioning scales
at level of the hierarchy.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> It's an attempt not
to lose the forest for the trees,
but also not to lose the trees for the forest.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> Look at all.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> At all levels.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> Most comprehensive picture we can.
We began this work,
I'd say probably around 2000,
late 2002, early 2003.
The restructured form came out and was released in 2008.
We spent several years working on the development and
then the validation analysis for the RF.
One question that I sometimes get asked is,
how did you wind up with 338 items?
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> I think some people felt that
our main goal was to make the test shorter.
That was not the case.
We came up with 338
because that's all we seem to be needing.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> I think it would
be fair to say that we didn't
anticipate needing to use all 567.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> No.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> Items.
There was a fair amount of redundancy.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> But in that connection,
going back to Hathaway,
you and I were also impressed by
how well thought out many of the items were.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> Indeed.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> There were poor items
that seemed unfortunately worded.
But when we tried to improve on
some items in some experimental studies
that we thought could be improved,
we found it very hard to improve on many of Hathaway.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> There are some nuances in
those items that I
think why they for so long.
What do you see as some
of the primary differences between
the MMPI-2 or original MMPI and the MMPI-2-RF?
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> Well, the thing you
mentioned earlier that this instrument is
reconnecting with
current theoretical developments in psychopathology.
It's a conceptually updated instrument.
I think still probably,
and we are not impartial, of course,
but does it more thoroughly
than other excellent competing instruments.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> I think one of the advantages
that offers users of
the MMPI-2-RF is that they're able to
rely not only on
what we've learned about the test itself,
but what the broader field tells us about
the constructs assessed by the restructured form.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> It's not only in terms of norms,
but also in terms of constructs
of concepts now much more up to date.
It's still unfinished business,
but it's much more up to date.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> We'll get to
that business here shortly.
But I think you just alluded to it.
In some respects, the MMPI-2
is more similar to some of the other measures that
still focus on psychiatric syndromes,
trying to assess them with single scales.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> Single scales.
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD: >> We've discovered really doesn't
work very well.
We've really moved from trying to measure
psychiatric syndromes to measuring
psychological variable relevant to psychopathology.
Auke Tellegen, PhD: >> That you can look at as a profile
and then arrive at diagnostic.
>> Including some diagnostic possibility.