STANDARDIZATION OF THE CHINESE MMPI-A IN HONG-KONG - A PRELIMINARY-STUDY

The Chinese Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescents (M MPI-A) was applied in Hong Kong to a normative sample of 565 male and 664 female students ages 14-18. The Chinese adolescents' MMPI-A T scor es based on the U.S. adolescent norms were elevated more than 1 SD on Scale 2. Similar elevations were found on Scale L (Lie) for the female students and on Scale A-lse (Adolescent Low Self-Esteem) for the male students. Moderate elevations were also shown on several scales, alth ough none of the clinical scales exceeded a T score of 65, the clinica l cutoff point based on U.S. norms. Whether these elevations were due to cultural differences in item interpretation or higher levels of psy chopathology among the Hong Kong students cannot be concluded from the present data. However, previous findings on the Chinese MMPI favors t he former explanation. These cultural differences should be taken into consideration in clinical interpretations of elevated scores on the C hinese MMPI-A.