Changes in Adolescent Response Patterns on the MMPI/MMPI–A Across Four Decades NEWSOM, ARCHER, TRUMBETTA, GOTTESMAN CHANGES IN MMPI ADOLESCENT RESPONSE PATTERNS Cassandra Rutledge Newsom Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology Robert P. Archer Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Eastern Virginia Medical School Susan Trumbetta Department of Psychology Vassar College Irving I. Gottesman Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology University of Minnesota The purpose of this study was to explore changes in adolescent self-presentation on the Minne- sota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI; Hathaway & McKinley, 1940) and MMPI–A (Butcher et al., 1992) over a 40-year period. The primary samples used for comparison in this study include 1,235 adolescents, age 14 through 16, derived from the MMPI–A normative sam- ple (Butcher et al., 1992) collected in 1989 and 10,514 adolescents, age 14 through 16, col- lected in 1948 and 1954 from Hathaway and Monachesi’s (1963) study of adolescent personal- ity and behavior. MMPI basic scale and item-level data were also included for 817 adolescents, age 14 through 16, collected by Colligan and Offord (1992) in 1985 as a further comparison. Between-sample analyses at the profile level revealed that adolescents from the MMPI–A nor- mative sample scored significantly higher across basic clinical scales and lower on validity scales L and K than adolescents from the Hathaway and Monachesi (1963) sample, with mean data from the Colligan and Offord (1992) sample typically falling at a midpoint value. Analyses of Harris–Lingoes (Harris & Lingoes, 1955) subscale and item-level data were conducted to provide refined definitions of the contents of scale-level changes. Results were interpreted as reflecting moderate to large changes in response frequencies between eras of data collection, and emphasis was placed on the relatively high frequency of item endorsements by contempo- rary adolescents in the clinical direction in the MMPI–A normative sample. A series of cautions and limitations are also offered in interpreting these patterns. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI; Hathaway & McKinley, 1940) was originally developed in the early 1940s as a self-report personality assessment measure for use with adults. However, early in its history an enduring interest arose in extending the use of this measure to an adoles- cent population (e.g., Ball, 1960, Baughman & Dahlstrom, 1968; Briggs, Wirt, & Johnson, 1961; Capwell, 1945; Gottesman, 1963; Hathaway & Monachesi, 1953, 1961, 1963; Marks, Seeman, & Haller, 1974; Rempel, 1958; Wirt & Briggs, 1959). The MMPI was in continuous use with adoles- cents for over half a century and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–Adolescent (MMPI–A; Butcher et al., 1992), an adolescent form of the MMPI, was released in 1992. Reflecting these instrument’s popularity, surveys of practitio- ners have revealed that the MMPI, and more recently the MMPI–A, are the most frequently used self-report personality instruments with teenagers (e.g., Archer, Maruish, Imhof, & Piotrowski, 1991; Archer & Newsom, 2000). JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT, 81(1), 74–84 Copyright © 2003, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.