The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a widely used personality inventory designed to assess personality structure and diagnose mental health disorders. Its primary use is to assess personality traits, psychopathology, and emotional functioning.
What feels like a lifetime ago, when I was still an undergraduate student I worked as a records clerk/receptionist in a psychiatric office. The psychologist on staff (an amazing mentor to me) taught me how to score the tests he would administer. The MMPI was his go-to instrument for criminal court cases or when he suspected a client of having a personality disorder. He was old-school and would score them by hand (a really time-consuming process involving stencils held up to the scantron sheet and counted). The vast majority of folks now use electronic administering and scoring methods.
The full version, the MMPI-2, has 567 true-false questions. There is a shorter version (MMPI-2-RF) with 188 items. Questions cover a range of topics from mental health symptoms to behaviors. There are validity scales built in to help assess truthfulness and consistency with answering, and clinical scales that measure specific psychological conditions.
The clinical scales include:
Hypochondriasis (Hs)
Depression (D)
Hysteria (Hy)
Psychopathic Deviate (Pd)
Masculinity–Femininity (Mf)
Paranoia (Pa)
Psychasthenia (Pt)
Schizophrenia (Sc)
Hypomania (Ma)
Social Introversion (Si)
Each scale assesses a different aspect of the individual’s psychological state or personality traits, and the responses are scored to generate a profile. There are also validity scales, clinical subscales, and content scales. It is an extensive inventory.
I mentioned its use in legal cases. This inventory is also used for pre-employment screening in some careers (such as law enforcement agencies). It takes 60-90 minutes to administer. It is only appropriate for adults 18 years of age or older.