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Assessment of Factitious Psychological Presentations (FPP): an Overlooked Response Style in Forensic Practice

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Abstract

Forensic practitioners face continuing challenges in differentiating factitious presentations from malingering, which may be particularly salient in civil forensic cases. In striking contrast to malingering, very little research has studied factitious psychological presentations (FPPs). To address this virtual void, the Inventory of Self and Interpersonal Problems (I-SIP) was developed with two primary scales to address motivations: Factitious (FACT) and Antisocial Characteristics (ANT-C). The I-SIP was tested on 80 inpatients under both genuine and feigning (factitious or malingering) conditions. As predicted, factitious feigners evidenced a dramatic spike on the FACT scale that clearly differentiated it from the other conditions with 90% or higher accuracy. In addition, a ratio between the two primary scales improved the specificity between factitious and malingered presentations. Professional implications are discussed, including the use of the I-SIP as a preliminary alert for factitious presentations.

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Notes

  1. Foly recommended: Merten and Merckelbach (2020) and Yates et al. (2018).

  2. For example, monetary rewards would likely vary by the poverty or wealth of different persons.

  3. The following benchmarks were used for clinical correlations: ≥ .35 for moderate,. ≥ 53 for large, and ≥ .60 for very large (Rogers  et al.,2018).

  4. See Velsor (2020) for an analysis of these scores.

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  1. The Department of Psychology, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #311280, Denton, TX, USA

    Sarah F. Velsor, Richard Rogers, John W. Donnelly II & Kamar Tazi

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  1. Sarah F. Velsor
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  2. Richard Rogers
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Correspondence to Richard Rogers.

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Velsor and Rogers are authors of the Inventory of Self and Interpersonal Problems (I-SIP). The I-SIP is considered to have no commercial value.

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Velsor, S.F., Rogers, R., Donnelly, J.W. et al. Assessment of Factitious Psychological Presentations (FPP): an Overlooked Response Style in Forensic Practice. Psychol. Inj. and Law 14, 201–212 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12207-021-09413-1

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