In a large sample of urban police officers, 18.1% of males and 15.9% of females reported experiencing adverse consequences from alcohol use and 7.8 % of the sample met criteria for lifetime alcohol abuse or dependence. Female officers had patterns of alcohol use similar to male officers and substantially more than females in the general population. Critical incident exposure and PTSD symptoms were not associated with level of alcohol use. Greater psychiatric symptoms were related to adverse consequences from alcohol use. There was a noteworthy gender by work stress interaction: greater routine work stress related to lower current alcohol use in female officers.

We examined random responding on the MMPI-A in 106 adolescents from the general population. Participants were asked to report on the frequency, location, and reasons for any random responses occurring during a standard administration of the MMPI-A. Relationships between self-reported random responding and validity indices (F1, F2, F, and Variable Response Inconsistency [VRIN] scale) were examined. In addition, each participant was randomly assigned to 1 of 5 groups, with each group completing an assigned portion (0, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%) of an MMPI-A answer sheet without access to the test booklet, and the utility of the validity scales in discriminating standard protocols from all or partially random protocols was investigated. Most adolescents acknowledged one or more random responses correlated significantly with F but not VRIN. Validity scales were sensitive to all or partially random protocols, and produced high classification rates when discriminating among groups.

Sixty adults in outpatient psychotherapy completed the NEO Personality Inventory--Revised (NEO PI-R, P. T. Costa & R. R. McCrae, 1992a). Half were instructed to fake good and half were given standard instructions. All completed the Interpersonal Adjective Scale--Revised, Big Five (J. S. Wiggins & P. D. Trapnell, 1997) under standard instructions, and their therapists completed the observer rating form of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory. A comparison group of 30 students completed the NEO PI-R under standard instructions. Standard and fake-good participants obtained significantly different NEO PI-R domain scores. Correlations between the NEO PI-R and criterion measures were significantly lower for faking than for standard patients. Validity scales for the NEO PI-R (J. A. Schinka, B. N. Kinder, & T. Kremer, 1997) were moderately accurate in discriminating faking from standard patients, but were only marginally accurate in discriminating faking patients from students.

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