Correlation between the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory profiles of emotionally disturbed adolescents and their mothers.

The purpose of this study was to show the similarities and differences in like-sex and unlike-sex parent-adolescent modeling. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventories were administered to male and female adolescents and their mothers upon admission of the adolescents to the St. Joseph Hospital Children and Youth Center. Comparisons of profiles and correlational data showed that the mother-daughter profiles were very similar but the mother-son profiles were dissimilar. Furthermore, repeat testing of the adolescents showed that the mother-daughter profiles became progressively dissimilar as treatment progressed. The similarities were explained in terms of like-sex modeling and the decrease in similarity was attributed to the impact of the treatment program on the female adolescents.