K Scale

Synonyms

Correction factor; Defensiveness

Definition

Validity scale on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and its revisions designed to identify individuals with significant psychopathology, whose profiles appear normal due to under-responding of psychopathology. The scale is also used to provide a correction factor to certain clinical scales to account for defensive responding, although research has been critical of this correction factor. Adolescent profiles are never K-corrected. Extremely low scores sometimes indicate exaggeration or fabrication of symptoms, whereas extremely high scores suggest unwillingness to self-disclose symptoms. In neuropsychological evaluation, extreme defensiveness may bring in to question the validity of other sources of subjective information (e.g., from the clinical interview and other self-report measures). Readers are referred to the MMPI entry for a discussion of limitations of this self-report measure when used with...