I am not sure of the specific title, but what is the MMPI Minnesota Personality Index? What does it test? What format is the test?

Valerie

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI, is a series of questions with yes-or-no answers. It was originally designed to be administered in a pencil-and-paper format, with an answer sheet and booklet of about 565 numbered questions, but now may sometimes be taken on a computer provided by the psychologist conducting the assessment. (It's not available online, as far as I know.)

The MMPI was designed several decades ago to provide psychologists with an overview of the personality style and emotional symptoms of the person taking it. There are several scales measuring things like depression, anxiety, etc. There are also subscales that assess whether the person appears to be answering the questions randomly or is trying to appear either better off or worse off than they really are.

The original MMPI was revised in the 1980s, and as a result most psychologists now use and refer to the MMPI-2. The MMPI (particularly the original version) may be the most researched psychological (certainly personality) test in the world. It's frequently used by psychologists when conducting psychological assessments -- often in conjunction with other assessment instruments, such as intelligence tests and other personality tests such as the Rorschach inkblot test. Most licensed psychologists are trained to interpret MMPI results, or "profiles," which they usually consider along with other data about the individual. There are computer programs now available that score the MMPI/MMPI-2 results and even provide an interpretative report, but such programs are only supposed to be purchased and used by psychologists who are properly trained to interpret and use them.