Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

1940

J. Charnley McKinley (1891–1950), Starke R. Hathaway (1903–1984)

During World War I, military officials became alarmed at the number of psychiatric casualties among soldiers who were involved in trench warfare, such as those who suffered from Shell Shock. To screen out soldiers with psychological problems, psychologist Robert S. Woodworth developed the Woodworth Personal Data Sheet, which included questions such as “Do you think you have hurt yourself by going too much with women?” and “Do you feel that nobody quite understands you?” This was a pioneering effort to objectively identify individuals with mental problems.

Unfortunately, it was not until the late 1930s that another objective test was developed for identifying people with mental disorders—the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Although other personality tests had been developed by this time, none was adequate or suitable for people in psychiatric hospitals. Starke Hathaway, a psychologist, and J. Charnley McKinley, a psychiatrist, had the very specific task of finding a way to reliably identify patients suffering from a variety of psychiatric illnesses.

The final version of the first edition of the MMPI (1940) consisted of 550 statements that the respondent was asked to identify as true or false, such as “I believe I am being followed,” “I like to play drop the handkerchief,” “I have never had any black, tarry-looking bowel movements,” and “I am a special agent of God.” To validate the test, responses of people without mental disorders were compared with the responses of a large number of mental patients. While none of the items individually indicates mental health or the lack of it, the pattern of responses can be grouped into ten clinical scales and three validity scales. The MMPI proved to be very useful in identifying people with mental disorders and distinguishing among them, so that depressed persons’ responses are different from those with schizophrenia, for example.

The MMPI quickly became very popular in psychiatric hospitals. It also began to be used in industry, prisons, and higher education. By the early twenty-first century, the MMPI had been revised twice (in 1989 and in 2001). It is the most researched psychological test in history.

SEE ALSO Psychological Tests (1890), Binet-Simon Test of Mental Levels (1905), Projective Tests (1921)

An aerial view of Northrop Mall, part of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities’ East Bank area. The MMPI was developed at the hospital on the University of Minnesota campus.