RELIABILITY OF THE MMPI-2 SUBTLE AND OBVIOUS SCALES WITH PSYCHIATRIC-INPATIENTS

Internal consistency reliability estimates were determined for the Wie ner and Harmon (1948) Subtle and Obvious scales of the Minnesota Multi phasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) with a group of psychiatric in patients. Except for Subtle Scale 3 (Hy), Subtle scale reliabilities w ere unacceptably low, ranging from .32 to .59. In each case, inclusion of the Subtle items attenuated the reliability of the corresponding F ull clinical scale. Removing the Subtle items resulted in comparable r eliabilities across all Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) scales, ranging from .75 to.92. It was hypothesized that the poor reliability of the Subtle scales may attenuate the validity of th e Full clinical scales.