Date of Award

12-2019

Document Type

Doctoral Research Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Radhika Krishnamurthy

Second Advisor

Victoria Follette

Third Advisor

Ted Petersen

Fourth Advisor

Lisa Steelman

Abstract

Well established and widely used personality measures such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) and Rorschach contain several scales or indices related to interpersonal dysfunction, but from very different methodologies. Using a multimethod assessment framework, the current study examined four primary areas of interpersonal dysfunction assessed by these measures in a sample of 65 adult outpatient clients who underwent services at a Community Psychological Services center. The four areas examined were hostility and aggression; isolation and avoidance; passivity and dependency; and insecurity and ineffectiveness. First, the study postulated that MMPI-2-RF and Rorschach variables within an interpersonal domain would correlate at a higher rate of positive correlation with each other than with variables of a different interpersonal domain. Results provided moderate support for this hypothesis within the Isolation/Avoidance domain, mild support within the Hostility/Aggression domain, minimal support within the Insecurity/Ineffectiveness domain, and no support within the Passivity/Dependency domain. Incremental validity was then assessed in terms of adding interpersonal MMPI-2-RF variables to the Rorschach, and vice versa. Hierarchical regression analyses results indicated that the

MMPI-2-RF provides moderate increment in predicting to an Interpersonal Relations outcome measure when added to the Rorschach for the domains of Isolation/Avoidance (Δ R ² = .13) and Insecurity/Ineffectiveness (Δ R ² = .12). The Rorschach provides strong incremental change when added to the MMPI-2-RF in the domain of Hostility/Aggression (Δ R ² = .21). Weak support was found for incremental validity in the domain of Passivity/Dependency in either direction. However, binary logistic regression results provided additional support for the MMPI-2-RF’s incremental contribution to the Rorschach in the Isolation/Avoidance and Passivity/Dependency domains. The implications of these findings are discussed.

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