MMPI item subtlety: familiar vs unfamiliar constructs.

This research was designed to clarify several issues surrounding the assessment of MMPI item subtlety. Experiment 1 asked 30 college undergraduates to define hysteria and paranoia. Results showed that 17% of the descriptions given for hysteria agreed with professional definitions, while 58% of the descriptions given for paranoia were accurate. Experiment 2 had 60 other college students rate Hy and Pa items on a subtle-obvious dimension with half the subjects receiving short definitions of the construct and half long definitions. Results showed that the additional descriptors had little effect on the classification of items as subtle, neutral or obvious regardless of scale. Correlation between these ratings derived from the scale-specific format and those obtained from a general psychopathology point of view were in the .70's for both Hy and Pa. The less familiar Hy items were significantly differentiated from Christian et al.'s (1978) ratings while the more familiar Pa items were not. How subtlety should be defined depends on the questions being asked.