Robert P Archer

• Ph.D.
• Professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School

Personality assessment is a field of psychology that seeks to understand and measure individual personality differences that characterize people across time and circumstance. Personality assessment is used for a variety of purposes including the identification and description of personality features among normal individuals as well as the assessmen...

The incidents of mass violence that have occurred in the United States have been deeply disturbing to the public as well as to mental health professionals. The public, the media, as well as our patients, family members, and friends have reached out to mental health professionals in the hope that we can provide an understanding of these events that...

This study explored the association between the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)–Adolescent-Restructured Form (MMPI-A-RF) and the MMPI-Adolescent (MMPI-A) form in a sample of 3,516 adolescents receiving inpatient psychiatric treatment, including 2,798 adolescents meeting validity inclusion cutoffs for both measures. There was 92.5...

Personality assessment is a field of psychology that seeks to understand and measure individual personality differences that characterize people across time and circumstance. Personality assessment is used for a variety of purposes including the identification and description of personality features among normal individuals as well as the assessmen...

The field of Forensic Psychology has greatly expanded over the past several decades, including the use of psychological assessment in addressing forensic issues. A number of surveys have been conducted regarding the tests used commonly by forensic psychologists. These surveys show that while tests specifically designed to address forensic issues ha...

Assessing Adolescent Psychopathology: MMPI-A / MMPI-A-RF, Fourth Edition provides updated recommendations for researchers and clinicians concerning the MMPI-A, the most widely used objective personality test with adolescents, and also introduces the MMPI-A-Restructured Form (MMPI-A-RF), the newest form of the MMPI for use with adolescents. Further,...

Child custody evaluations are among the most difficult of forensic evaluations. The current paper examines differences between custody evaluations and other types of psychological and forensic evaluations. We also discuss important ethical issues regarding these evaluations and review the typical components of a custody evaluation, with particular...

In this study, we evaluated the internal psychometric properties and external correlates of scores on the Clinical, Content, and Supplementary scales in a forensic sample of 496 adolescents (315 boys and 181 girls) who were court-ordered to receive psychological evaluations. We examined Cronbach's alpha coefficients, scale intercorrelation matrices...

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2–Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) is a 338-item objective self-report measure drawn from the 567 items of the MMPI-2. Although there is a substantial MMPI-2 literature regarding child custody litigants, there has been only one previously published study using MMPI-2-RF data in this population that focus...

This review provides a critical analysis of the ability of multiscale inventories to distinguish between sex offender and nonoffender control groups, as well as to discriminate sex offenders from other types of offenders. In addition to expanding upon previous reviews that examined the utility of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMP...

High prevalence rates of psychological problems among juvenile offenders underscore the need for effective mental health screening tools in the juvenile justice system. In this study, we evaluated the validity of the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-2 (MAYSI-2) developed by Grisso and Barnum (2001) to identify mental health needs of adolesc...

In the present study, the authors evaluated the effects of increasing degrees of simulated non-content-based (random or fixed) responding on scores on the newly developed Variable Response Inconsistency-Revised (VRIN-r) and True Response Inconsistency-Revised (TRIN-r) scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Restructured Form (MM...

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–Adolescent (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992) is an adolescent-specific revision of the original, broadband personality instrument, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI; Hathaway & McKinley, 1943). The original MMPI, designed primarily for adult clinical assessment, had been applied to ev...

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory—Adolescent (MMPI-A) and Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI) are frequently used objective personality self-report measures. Given their widespread use, the purpose of the current study was to examine and compare the literature base for the two instruments. A comprehensive review of the literat...

In this article, we describe 8 legal cases reporting the use of the MMPI–A (Butcher et al., 199228. Butcher , J. N. , Williams , C. L. , Graham , J. R. , Archer , R. P. , Tellegen , A. Ben-Porath , Y. S. 1992. MMPI–A: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2: Manual for administration, scoring, and interpretation, , rev. ed., Minneapolis...

In this study, we compared the internal psychometric properties and external correlates of the MMPI-2 (Butcher et al., 2001; Tellegen et al., 2003) Restructured Clinical (RC) scales and corresponding MMPI-2 non-K-corrected Clinical scales in a sample of 280 men and 264 women admitted to inpatient psychiatric units. We evaluated the internal psychom...

This study evaluated the incremental validity of scores from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory—2 (MMPI-2) and the Symptom Checklist—90—Revised (SCL-90-R) in a sample of mental health inpatients originally published by Archer, Griffin, and Aiduk (1995). The incremental validity of scores from the SCL-90-R primary symptom dimensions and...

Numerous studies have reported that the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) produces a high frequency of within-normal-limits basic scale profiles for adolescents with significant clinical pathology (e.g., Archer, 2005). The current study builds on the observation that the MMPI-A normative sample included participants wh...

The articles in this issue by Nichols (2006/this issue) and Rogers, Sewell, Harrison, and Jordan (2006/this issue) provide evaluations and critiques of the Restructured Clinical (RC) Scales developed by Tellegen et al. (2003) to reduce the high intercorrelations typically found among MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) Ba...

Clinical psychologists are frequently called on to testify in court regarding mental health issues in civil or criminal cases. One of the legal criteria by which admissibility of testimony is determined includes whether the testimony is based on methods that have gained "general acceptance" in their field. In this study, we sought to evaluate the p...

The MMPI-2 (Butcher et al., 2001) and the MCMI-III (Millon, Davis, & Millon, 1997) may contribute to understanding psychological functioning in parental competency examinees. In this study, we sought to identify MMPI-2 and MCMI-III characteristics of this population. We collected data regarding 127 individuals who underwent court-ordered parental c...

External correlates of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI-2) Content Component Scales were identified using an inpatient sample of 544 adults. The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and Symptom Checklist 90–Revised (SCL-90-R) produced correlates of the Content Component Scales, demonstrating external validity with clinicianr...

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–Adolescent (MMPI-A) and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI-2) True Response Inconsistency (TRIN) scales are measures of acquiescence and nonacquiescence included among the standard validity scales on these instruments. The goals of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of thes...

The MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) and the MMPI-Adolescent (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992) have been used in the evaluation of adolescents for over 60 years, resulting in over 200 studies involving tens of thousands of adolescents. This literature not only informs us concerning characteristics of this test instrument but also holds important impli...

The Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY-5) is a five-factor personality trait model designed for assessing personality pathology using quantitative dimensions. Harkness, McNulty, and Ben-Porath developed Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) scales based on the PSY-5 model, and these scales were recently added to the standard MMP...

This third edition of Robert Archer's classic step-by-step guide to the MMPI-A continues the tradition of the first two in presenting the essential facts and recommendations for students, clinicians, and researchers interested in understanding and utilizing this assessment instrument to its fullest. Special features of the third edition: presentati...

There is a high prevalence of psychological disorders among adolescents in detention facilities. The need for a simple, effective screening tool led to the development of the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument (MAYSI) and its successor, the MAYSI-2. This study evaluated the MAYSI-2 psychometric properties based on the records of 704 youths ev...

This paper describes the Bureau of Health Professions (BHPr) Graduate Psychology Education program (GPE), which supports projects that train health service psychologists for work with underserved populations. BHPr history and funding criteria are discussed, as are those of BHPr's parent organization, the Health Resources Service Administration. BHP...

McNulty, Harkness, Ben-Porath and Williams recently developed Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY-5) scales for the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-A (MMPI-A). This study examined these new scales in a sample of 545 adolescents receiving inpatient psychiatric treatment. Item-level principal components analyses were employed to determi...

The MMPI-2 Superlative (S) scale was developed by Butcher and Han (1995) to assess individuals' tendencies to present themselves in an unrealistically positive light. The current study examined the performance of the L, K, and S scales in accurately distinguishing the MMPI-2 profiles of 379 psychiatric inpatients who produced one or more elevations...

The current study investigates the extent to which the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) profiles of 196 male adolescents evaluated in a South Carolina detention center could be successfully discriminated from the protocols of 200 male adolescent psychiatric inpatients in three states and 151 dually diagnosed male adol...

Over the 10-year publication history of Assessment, we have developed a number of special issues of the journal to deal with important topic areas, including the interface between neuropsychology and personality assessment published in 1996, a special journal segment on perspectives surrounding the use of the Rorschach published in 1999, and an out...

Principal axis factor analyses of the Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS) in a clinical sample of 152 adolescents yielded three clearly defined factors: Synthesized Complexity (defined by Zf, DQ+, and F%), Productivity (defined by R, D, and Dd), and Form Quality (defined by X+%, F+%, and X-%). Variables on the Synthesized Complexity and Form Qualit...

The purpose of this study was to explore changes in adolescent self-presentation on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI; Hathaway & McKinley, 1940) and MMPI-A (Butcher et al., 1992) over a 40-year period. The primary samples used for comparison in this study include 1,235 adolescents, age 14 through 16, derived from the MMPI-A nor...

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–Adolescent (MMPI-A) Structural Summary was developed as a means of simplifying the interpretation of the 69 scales and subscales of this test instrument by organizing findings around eight primary factor dimensions. The current study examined the scale-level factor structure of the MMPI-A in a large s...

This study investigated the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI-2) characteristics of 209 chronic pain patients in an inpatient pain treatment program. Patients completed the MMPI-2, Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, and Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire. Participants in this sample were matched with comparison partic...

Although there is a substantial research literature on the effects of random responding on the MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989), there are very few studies available on this topic with the MMPI-A (Butcher et al., 1992). Archer and Elkins (1999) found that MMPI-A validity scales F and VRIN were particularly useful in de...

As the final article in the Special Series on "The Utility of the Rorschach for Clinical Assessment," the authors provide an overview of this instrument's current status. They begin with a thorough review of global and focused meta-analyses, including an expanded analysis of K. C. H. Parker, R. K. Hanson, and J. Hunsley's (1988) data set, and concl...

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992) was released in 1992 and has rapidly become the most widely used objective personality assessment instrument with adolescents. Although the MMPI-A reduced or eliminated several problems associated with the use of the original MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) w...

As the final article in the Special Series on "The Utility of the Rorschach fur Clinical Assessment," the authors provide an overview of this instrument's current status. They begin with a thorough review of global and focused mete-analyses, including an expanded analysis of K. C. H. Parker. R. K. Hanson, and J. Hunsley's (1988) data set, and concl...

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) F(p) scale was developed by Arbisi and Ben-Porath (1995) by identification of 27 items endorsed by fewer than 20% of individuals in both normal and psychiatric samples. The F(p) scale was designed for applications in settings characterized by high base rates of serious psychopathology, such...

In this investigation we examined the ability of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992) to classify accurately both clinical and normal adolescents using 2 different T-score elevation ranges, T > or = 60 and T > or = 65, and using 2 different clinical base rates for the occurrence of psychopatholog...

Several empirical studies have found the Rorschach Depression Index (DEPI) to have questionable diagnostic utility. Studies using adolescent samples suggest that the DEPI has limited sensitivity and fails to differentiate effectively between adolescents with and without depression diagnoses. The present study was conducted to evaluate Viglione, Bra...

Efforts to develop a viable short form of the MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) span more than 50 years, with more recent attempts to significantly shorten the item pool focused on the use of adaptive computerized test administration. In this article, we report some psychometric properties of an MMPI-Adolescent version (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992)...

In 1991, Archer, Maruish, Imhof, and Piotrowski presented survey findings based on the responses of a national sample of psychologists who performed psychological assessment with adolescent clients. The current survey was designed to update their results by examining the test use practices reported by 346 psychologists who work with adolescents in...

A psychometrically sound method of prorating scores from a shortened version of the MMPI-2 is presented to approximate the full-scale raw scores on the basic scales. After a brief review of the history of short versions of the original MMPI and their strengths and weaknesses, justifications for developing and publishing this new version are offered...

Although substantial research literature on the effects of random responding on the MMPI-2 exists, there is very limited data available on this issue with the MMPI-A. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the utility of selected MMPI-A validity scales in detecting differences in response patterns between protocols produced by 354 adolescents as...

We undertook this study to provide empirically derived interpretative recommendations for the MMPI-A Structural Summary through an evaluation of factor elevation patterns. We examined the frequency of single-factor, two-factor, and multifactor elevations in a clinical sample of 363 adolescents receiving inpatient, outpatient, or residential treatme...

This study focused on the relationship between the occurrence of specific Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) basic scale profile patterns and the frequency of endorsement of three items related, in varying degrees, to suicide ideation (MMPI-A Items 177, 283, and 399). The research sample consisted of adolescents (n = 34...

Using multiple linear regression analyses, we examined the effects of participant status for 3 demographic variables and the presence of psychopathology on variance in MMPI-A scale scores. The analyses were designed to measure the incremental contribution of demographic variables to scale variance beyond that explained, by the presence of psychopat...

The MMPI-A normative sample (805 males, 815 females) and an adolescent clinical sample (266 males, 92 females) were used to investigate the factor structure of the MMPI-A content scales. Principal factor analyses were conducted on scale-level raw score data for the set of 15 MMPI-A content scales, and item-level factor analyses were also conducted...

Many clinicians have come to rely on the broad array of validity scales available on the MMPI and the MMPI-2. In this study, we evaluated the utility of 2 MMPI-2 validity scales, the K scale and VRIN scale, in a sample of 692 psychiatric inpatients. Specifically, the effects of the K-correction procedure and the exclusion of protocols based on VRIN...

The adolescent form of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-A) Structural Summary was developed from the results of a scale-level factor analysis conducted by Archer, Belevich, and Elkins based on the MMPI-A normative sample. The present study examined the scale-level factor structure of the MMPI-A in a clinical sample of 358 adole...

This investigation extends the earlier research by Archer and Gordon (1988) by examining the extent to which combining indices from the newly released MMPI-A and the revised Rorschach Comprehensive System furnishes incremental validity in terms of improved diagnostic prediction. The predictive accuracy of selected MMPI-A and Rorschach variables con...

Results of past empirical studies utilizing the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Rorschach Inkblot Test (Rorschach) have tended to be equivocal regarding the level and nature of psychopathology associated with samples of individuals requesting gender reassignment surgery. The present study compared the MMPI-2 basic scale T...

Several hundred special or supplementary scales were created for the original Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). At the time of the release of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) in 1989, 15 supplementary scales were included in, or developed for, this revised test. The degree to which the MMPI-2 supplementar...

The Immaturity (IMM) scale was developed for the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) to provide an objective measure of ego development or maturation. The present study examines the concurrent validity of the IMM scale based on a residential treatment sample of 66 adolescents, ages 13 through 18 years. Participants were...

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992), released in 1992, was developed specifically for use with adolescent respondents. The purpose of this article is to offer suggestions concerning 6 areas of productive research with this instrument. These areas include studies of the utility of codetype interp...

An extensive empirical literature, spanning 50 years and 45 published investigations, leads to the conclusion that the Rorschach and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) bear little or no meaningful relationship to each other. An inherent tension exists between these empirical findings and the widespread clinical practice of integ...

This study examines the effects of scoring 18-year-old respondents on Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory for Adolescents (MMPI-A) norms in terms of T-score elevations and profile configuration. Results indicate that substantial differences can occur in T-score elevations for 18-yea...

Although the results of research on the effectiveness of the K-correction factor have been inconclusive, this procedure has been widely used with adult respondents to correct for defensiveness or underreporting of symptomatology on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Although the K-correction procedure was incorporated into the Minneso...

The present study investigated the interrelationships among selected Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory for Adolescents (MMPI-A) and Rorschach variables in a clinical sample of 152 adolescents, taking into account the potential moderating role of Rorschach response frequency (R). A series of hypotheses were presented based on a priori sele...

The current study replicated and expanded previous investigations that focused on the incremental contribution of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) content scales. The MMPI-2 and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) were administered to 597 adult psychiatric patients (289 females, 308 males) receiving inpatient treat...

A number of researchers have called for the establishment of a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2; Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) correlate literature that is based directly on investigations of the revised MMPI. The purpose of this study was to examine clinical correlates found for 9 commonly occurring 2-...

The Harris-Lingoes subscales were carried over to the MMPI-2 and MMPI-A despite limited empirical evaluation of these scales for either the original or the revised instruments. In the revised forms of the MMPI, these subscales are subject to the same interpretive guideline applied to the other standard scales, that is, T-score elevations Z65 are in...

The 69 scales and subscales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) are highly intercorrelated and furnish redundant information concerning adolescents' personality functioning. A recent study by Archer, Belevich, and Elkins (1994) identified eight scale-level factors for the MMPI-A. In this article we present a Struc...

Surveys regarding practitioner perceptions of time requirements for psychological testing were mailed to a national sample of clinical psychologists. There were 228 (36%) returns from 630 mailings actually received. On the basis of 151 usable returns from respondents who conduct psychological testing services, data are presented separately for time...

The 478-item Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) is a revision of the original test instrument for use in the assessment of adolescents. As part of the MMPI-A development, process, 70 items were modified from their appearance in the original test instrument to eliminate obsolete or sexist language, reduce awkward phrasin...

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) is a 478-item test that represents a substantial revision of the original form of the MMPI. This investigation sought to identify the item-level factor structure of the MMPI-A and also examined the scale-level factor structure of the 69 scales and subscales of this instrument. The...

The Immaturity (IMM) Scale was developed as a supplementary scale for the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A). This study describes the development of the IMM Scale and presents some concurrent validity data derived from the MMPI-A normative sample of 1,620 adolescents and a clinical sample of 122 adolescent inpatients....

This article examines one aspect of the potential usefulness of critical items to the: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory -Adolescent (MMPI-A). Endorsement frequency data are presented on the Koss-Butcher (1973) and the Lachar-Wrobeli (1979) critical items for Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) adult normative and clini...

The MMPI and Rorschach are consistently ranked among the most widely used psychological assessment instruments across adolescent and adult clinical settings. Although there is an extensive research literature available on each instrument individually, relatively little research attention has been focused on the interrelationships between these meas...

This research involves the development, validation, and cross-validation of the Items-Easy (Ie) and Items-Difficult (Id) subscales for the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992). These subscales were designed to assess the degree to which reading comprehension deficits may be responsible for significan...

We examined empirical findings related to the integration of the Rorschach and the MMPI in assessing adolescents. Intercorrelations between 50 Rorschach variables and the 13 MMPI basic scales are reported for a clinical sample of 197 adolescents. Significant correlations only slightly exceeded the number expected by chance. A review of six addition...

Performed discriminant function analyses on the MacAndrew ( MAC) scale scores of 443 adolescents from 3 different samples (residential substance abusers, psychiatric inpatients, and high school students). Results indicated that the highest degree of discrimination occurred between substance abusers and normals. The considerable overlap observed in...

Performed discriminant function analyses on the MacAndrew ( MAC ) scale scores of 443 adolescents from 3 different samples (residential substance abusers, psychiatric inpatients, and high school students). Results indicated that the highest degree of discrimination occurred between substance abusers and normals. The considerable overlap observed in...

Although the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Millon Adolescent Personality Inventory (MAPI) are both widely used in the clinical assessment of adolescents, no research has examined the interrelationship between these two instruments. We investigated MMPI and MAPI responses from 199 adolescents assessed at entrance to inpa...

This study investigated the relationship between subjects' MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale (MAC) elevations and their placement in various codetype classifications. The sample consisted of 1,347 adolescents receiving psychiatric services in Missouri, Virginia, or Texas. The frequency of MAC scores greater than or equal to 24 and greater than or equal to...