Citation

Rhodes NR. J. Fam. Violence 1992; 7(4): 297-307.

Affiliation

130 South Euclid Ave., Suite 4, 91101 Pasadena, California

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF00994620

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Despite the voluminous research using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, little research has been done evaluating the MMPI for assessing personality profiles and psychopathology in victims of domestic violence. The current study focused on the Psychopathic Deviate scale (scale 4), and the Harris and Lingoes subscales measuring specific aspects of this concept. The objective was to evaluate whether a clinical population of battered women differed from a nonbattered group drawn from a similar clinical setting. The battered group scored higher on the full scale (p less than .001), the Authority Problems scale (p less than .001), the Social Alienation scale, (p less than .01), and the Social Imperturbability scale (p less than .05). There was no difference on Self-Alienation. The score on Family Discord (Pd1) was the most elevated for the battered group, falling just below moderately elevated. Within the battered group, the score on Family Discord (M =69.11) was significantly more highly elevated than the score on Self-Alienation (M =60.4) (the next most highly elevated score). These findings suggest that there is an association between elevated scale 4 scores and victimization by domestic violence. However, it is essential that clinicians carefully evaluate such scores in the context of each individual situation before attributing causation.