Date of Award

12-2019

Document Type

Doctoral Research Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Radhika Krishnamurthy

Second Advisor

Julie Costopoulos

Third Advisor

Debbie Lelekis

Fourth Advisor

Lisa A. Steelman

Abstract

Personality assessment measures have been heavily used and researched with criminal offender populations in the realms of clinical, forensic, and correctional psychology for reasons including assessing reoffending risk, informing predictions regarding future behavior, and treatment planning. The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) features among the personality assessment measures widely used in evaluating criminal offenders. This current study compromised of adults male inmates (N=95) incarcerated in Brevard County, Florida examined scores from the recently released Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-Fourth Edition (MCMI-IV). The study’s goals included (a) providing reference data based on a sample of jail inmates receiving mental health services, (b) establishing correlates of MCMI-IV scale scores using variables from an institutional mental health screener, and (c) examining scale score differences between violent and non-violent offenders. Biserial correlations were computed to establish correlates of the MCMI-IV scale scores with substance use and suicide-related variables on the mental health screener with the intent of expanding the current MCMI-IV scale descriptors. Overall, there were no significant correlates found with the substance use correlates of the MCMI-IV scales and some inverse correlations with suicide-related risk factors of MCMI-IV scales. Multivariate and univariate analyses comparing the scores of violent and nonviolent offenders showed no significant differences for the primary MCMI-IV scales. However, some significant differences were found when analyzing the Grossman facet scales. Contributions and limitations of these findings, as well as future research directions, are discussed.

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