THE ABILITY OF INDIVIDUALS WITH PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCE USE DISORDERS TO ESCAPE DETECTION BY THE PERSONALITY-ASSESSMENT INVENTORY

The ability of individuals with psychoactive substance use disorders t o dissimulate successfully on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PA I; L. C. Morey, 1991) was evaluated. Patients receiving treatment for drug abuse who were instructed to respond honestly (n = 59) had signif icantly higher scores on PAI scales measuring problems with alcohol an d other drug use than (a) patients instructed to respond defensively ( n = 59), (b) respondents suspected of abusing psychoactive substances who were referred for an evaluation by the criminal justice system and who had reasons to conceal their drug use (n = 59), and (c) responden ts from a nonclinical control group (n = 59). However, a PAI validity scale designed to measure positive dissimulation was prone to making f alse positive and false negative errors, depending on the cutoff emplo yed.