Assessing Negative Response Bias Using Self-Report Measures Current Trends and Future Directions

It is now well known that assessees sometimes exaggerate (intentionally or unintentionally) the severity of their emotional or somatic problems when asked to describe their own psychological difficulties. Contrary to earlier assumptions, this phenomenon occurs not only in forensic contexts but also in clinical contexts. Accordingly, there is a growing consensus among several professional organizations that the credibility of claimed psychological problems should not be automatically assumed but must be objectively assessed with psychometrically sound, empirically validated instruments. Consistent with this emerging trend, this symposium aims to discuss current trends and future directions in the field of symptom validity assessment research and practice. Holmes et al. begin the session by reporting on a criterion-groups study in which the MMPI-3 was administered to 665 disability claimants along with several other measures. The concurrent validity and classification accuracy of MMPI-3 measures of negative response bias (validity scales) will be presented and discussed. Shura will then review research conducted with various measures (e.g., NSI/mBIAS, SIMS, and PCL-5) to summarize recent findings suggesting that symptom validity scales often tap on two different constructs that measure either exaggeration or fabrication of symptoms. Viglione and Giromini then summarize the relatively large research literature that has addressed the effectiveness of the IOP-29 and the IOP-M in recent years. Finally, Ingram et al. over-view a pro-rating and rescoring approach for the MMPI-3, based on MMPI-2-RF item scores, by inspecting data from Active-Duty (AD) personnel.