ABSTRACT
In completing the MMPI-2 some individuals fail to comply with the instructions to mark the items as they apply to themselves. Instead, they systematically describe someone whom they envision as having a perfect personality or an ideal adjustment. The resulting records provide poor bases for making inferences about these subjects. It is essential that some means be available to detect this approach and appraise its effects on the test patterns. Hathaway and McKinley introduced the L (Lie) scale to assess the likelihood that the test subject had approached the test with this set in mind. For this indicator, suggested by research carried out in the Harvard Character Education Inquiry by Hartshorne and May (1928) and Hartshorne, May, and Shuttleworth (1930), Hathaway and McKinley wrote items that provide the subject the opportunity to deny various minor faults and character flaws that most individuals are quite willing to acknowledge as being true of themselves. Although the L scale can reflect deceit in the test-taking situation, it cannot be viewed as a measure of any general tendency to lie, fabricate, or deceive others on the part of individuals in their day-to-day activities. Rather, it serves as one index of the likelihood that a given test protocol has been spoiled by a particular style of responding to the inventory.
