An Introduction to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent-Restructured Form (MMPI-A-RF)

Richard W. Handel

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent-Restructured Form (MMPI-A-RF; Archer, Handel, Ben-Porath, & Tellegen, 2016) is a new broadband measure of adolescent psychopathology and personality. The MMPI-A-RF is the adolescent counterpart of the MMPI-2-RF (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008/2011). The goal of the MMPI-2-RF development project was to capture the clinically significant substance of the MMPI-2 item pool with a psychometrically sound measure linked to contemporary models of personality and psychopathology (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008/2011). Using the MMPI-2-RF scales and development methods as models, Archer et al. (2016) developed a 241-item adolescent self-report inventory-in contrast to the 478-items of the MMPI-A-that includes 48 new and revised scales. In this manuscript, I provide an overview of the rationale for the development of the MMPI-A-RF, an abbreviated review of its development process, brief descriptions of its 48 scales, and a subset of analyses bearing on reliability and validity. As with the MMPI-2-RF, one of our primary goals was to develop scales with improved discriminant validity relative to the heterogeneous Clinical Scales of the MMPI-2 and MMPI-A. The MMPI-A-RF development process employed a large sample of 15,128 adolescents (9,286 boys and 5,842 girls) drawn from a variety of settings. In addition to the development sample, subsequent validation analyses were conducted in multiple independent samples including numerous external criterion measures. The MMPI-A-RF is designed to provide a comprehensive assessment of adolescent psychopathology and personality in a wide array of clinical and forensic settings.