Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI) is a personality test applied in mental health. It is used to diagnose psychiatric illnesses; the psychiatric categories used are depression, hysteria, hypochondria, paranoia, psychopathic deviation, psychasthenia, hypomania, and schizophrenia. Later, two skills were added which are social introversion and masculinity-femininity (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008). NEO personality inventory is a personality test created to assess five major domains of personality. These domains are neuroticism, agreeableness, openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness.
The original MMPI was made up of 550 items to which the patient gave the responses true, false or cannot say. In the test construction process for MMPI, only those items, which differentiated a clinical group from a non clinical group, were included. MMPI was hand cored or machines corp. A revision was made to the first version, and MMPI-2 was made to have a total of 704 items. The participants in its construction were from Minnesota, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Washington, California, and Virginia.
In is construction, it was intended for those who are at least 13 years old and or can read at the eighth grade level (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008). MMPI-2 can be administered to individuals or groups. MMPI has an adolescent version known as MMPI-A. Non English versions of the test were created, and it was made in such a way that it can be computer scored. The original scales were created to forecast psychiatric categorization, therefore, the original use of MMPI depended on simple interpretation based on elevated scale scores. The examination became focused on profiles or patterns of scores. The interpretation was made to be based on content (Sellbom & Ben-Porath, 2005).
The NEO personality inventory in its creation incorporated six facets into each of the domains it assesses. These facets were created to characterize the various aspects of every domain. It was created to contain 240 items and the responses are on a five point scale. This five point scale includes strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, and strongly agree. It was made to be a self reported measure of personality features which comprised of personality known as five factor model.
It was developed on the basis of empirical test construction strategy which puts emphasis on construct validity. The items included were selected on the basis of empirical performance. In the construction, therefore, the most valid and reliable items were the ones which were retained.
Factor analysis of the performance was conducted to ensure that each item is loaded into their respective factors. Nearly half of the items in revised NEO personality inventory are reverse scored, this means that the lower scores point more to the trait that is being questioned. In the construction, 500 women and 500 men were involved. The creation of the revised NEO personality inventory ensured test-retest reliability and internal consistency (Kurtz & Parrish, 2001).
According to information about the test construction of both MMPI and NEO personality inventory, I think that the NEO personality inventory has more validity than its counterpart. This is because studies done using NEO personality inventory have shown that it is convergently and discriminatively valid. These studies were mostly carried out by McCrae and Costa to illustrate this and information was compiled from studies done among college students and teachers in Spain.
It was found that there was concurrent validity was high which correlated with the test and other self report measures. It also has high construct validity; this correlates the five main areas to well being, health, and self esteem. In these studies, the validity of NEO personality inventory was clearly demonstrated (McCrae et al., 2005).
References
Ben-Porath, Y. S., & Tellegen, A. (2008). MMPI-2-RF (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Restructured Form): Manual for administration, scoring, and interpretation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Kurtz, J. E., & Parrish, C. L. (2001). Semantic response consistency and protocol validity in structured personality assessment: The case of the NEO PI-R. Journal of Personality Assessment, 76, 315-332.
McCrae, R. R., Costa, P. T., & Martin, T. A. (2005). The NEO-PI-3: A more readable revised NEO personality inventory. Journal of Personality Assessment, 84(3), 261-270.
Sellbom, M., & Ben-Porath, Y. S. (2005). Mapping the MMPI-2 Restructured Clinical (RC) Scales onto normal personality traits: Evidence of construct validity. Journal of Personality Assessment, 85, 179-187.