Department of Psychological Sciences, Texas Tech University.
Dwight D. Eisenhower Veteran Affairs Medical Center, Eastern Kansas Veteran Healthcare System.
Psychol Assess. 2021 Sep;33(9):871-879. doi: 10.1037/pas0001028. Epub 2021 Apr 29.
Psychological evaluations of clergy applicants to the Catholic Church are an important gatekeeping mechanism during the admission process. However, limited research exists on the validity of assessments for this evaluative purpose and none have examined the predictive utility of the MMPI-2-RF to determine if an applicant will be accepted to formation, or if they ultimately ordained. This study fills that gap in the literature by investigating the predictive validity of MMPI-2-RF scales in 147 male applicants evaluated as part of their application for seminary or diaconate formation programs in a mid-sized Catholic diocese in the United States. Group analyses (e.g., Kruskal-Wallis tests) with admission status as the independent variable and MMPI-2-RF scales as the dependent variables yielded significant differences, most notably, those participants not admitted had higher mean scores on F-r, Fp-r, EID, RC7, THD, RC8, RC1, MLS, NUC, and JCP than the other three groups. Relative risk ratios were estimated for all MMPI-2-RF scales, indicating that higher scores are generally associated with a lower likelihood of admission and, ultimately, ordination. Limitations and future directions of research are also discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
对申请加入天主教会的神职人员进行心理评估是准入过程中的一个重要把关机制。然而，针对这种评估目的，有效性的相关研究有限，且尚无研究检验 MMPI-2-RF 的预测效用，以确定申请人是否会被接受参加培训，或者他们最终是否会被任命。本研究通过调查美国一个中等规模天主教教区的 147 名男性申请人在申请神学院或执事培训计划时进行的 MMPI-2-RF 量表的预测有效性，填补了这一文献空白。以录取状况为自变量，MMPI-2-RF 量表为因变量的组间分析（例如，克鲁斯卡瓦利斯检验）得出了显著差异，最值得注意的是，未被录取的参与者在 F-r、Fp-r、EID、RC7、THD、RC8、RC1、MLS、NUC 和 JCP 等量表上的平均分高于其他三个组。还对所有 MMPI-2-RF 量表进行了相对风险比估计，表明分数较高通常与录取率较低以及最终任命的可能性较低相关。研究的局限性和未来方向也进行了讨论。
