Does prior law enforcement experience affect scores on preemployment psychological testing? An investigation using the MMPI-3.

Abstract

Most states require that a police candidate's suitability be assessed through preemployment psychological evaluations. Given the psychological stress officers experience in the line of duty, it is possible that experienced candidates would produce scores indicating greater dysfunction on psychological testing relative to inexperienced candidates. No known research has investigated whether police candidates produce different preemployment test scores across experience levels. The present study sought to address this gap in the literature and offer data to guide evaluators' interpretation of test scores for candidates with prior law enforcement (LE) experience. We used a sample of 400 police candidates (18.5% women) evaluated for positions at several LE agencies for whom Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-3 (MMPI-3) scores were available. Results showed no practically meaningful differences when comparing MMPI-3 scores of candidates with no prior experience, less than 5 years of experience, and 5 or more years of experience. We also compared frequencies at which the three groups elevated MMPI-3 scales at cutoffs specified in Assessing Police and Other Public Safety Personnel Using the MMPI-3: A Practical Guide (Corey & Ben-Porath, 2022) and found minimal differences. Together, these findings indicate that MMPI-3 scores can be interpreted consistently with published guidelines regardless of a candidate's prior LE experience. Impact StatementThis study showed that police candidates produce similar personality test results on the MMPI-3 during preemployment psychological evaluation regardless of their level of prior law enforcement experience.

Associations Between MMPI-3 and Psychosocial History Findings Obtained in Preemployment Evaluations of Public Safety Candidates

“…All data came from an archival dataset, a subset of which was previously analyzed (Menton et al, 2022; Sellbom et al, 2021; Whitman, Corey & Ben-Porath, 2022), and subsets of which is included in the MMPI-3 Police Officer, Correction Officer, Dispatcher, and Firefighter Comparison Groups. Public safety candidates were referred by 154 hiring agencies to the second author’s private practice for psychological evaluations following the conditional offer of employment.…”

“…To date, two peer-reviewed studies investigated the validity and clinical utility of MMPI-3 scores in police and other public safety candidates (Whitman et al, 2021; Whitman, Corey & Ben-Porath, 2022). The first, Whitman et al (2021), evaluated the validity of inferences drawn from MMPI-3 scores, but also the generalizability of these inferences across male and female police candidates and across police candidates and an aggregate sample of nonpolice public safety candidates.…”

“…The second peer-reviewed study on the MMPI-3 in a preemployment context evaluated whether scores were meaningfully different across police candidates with no prior law enforcement experience, up to 5 years of previous experience, and 5 or more years of previous experience (Whitman, Corey & Ben-Porath, 2022). The authors found no practically meaningful differences across groups and concluded that the validity of inferences drawn from MMPI-3 scores could be generalized across police candidates regardless of whether they have prior law enforcement experience.…”

“….17 q = Cohen's q; -indicates that Cohen's q is not statistically significant (p Police candidates consistently produced lower and less variable scale scores on the MMPI-2-RF (Detrick et al, 2016;Roberts et al, 2019;Tarescavage, Brewster et al, 2015;Tarescavage, Corey, Gupton et al, 2015;Tarescavage, Fischler et al, 2015), MMPI-3 (Whitman et al, 2021;Whitman, Corey & Ben-Porath, 2022) and other tests of personality and psychopathology, such as the Personality Assessment Inventory (e.g., Lowmaster & Morey, 2012) and the California Psychological Inventory (in this case, higher scores indicated fewer reported problems; e.g., Roberts et al, 2019). Although Whitman et al (2021) reported similar findings for MMPI-3 in an aggregate sample of nonpolice public safety candidates, no previous peerreviewed study reported these findings for MMPI-3 scores in position-specific samples.…”

Incremental Validity of MMPI-3 and NEO PI-3 Scores in Public Safety Candidate Pre-employment Psychological Evaluations

“…Whitman et al (2021) also found minimal differences in validity coefficients across male and female police candidates and across police and other public safety candidates. In another validation study, Whitman et al (2023b) demonstrated that police candidates produced similar MMPI-3 scores regardless of level of prior police officer experience. In a third study, Whitman et al (2023a) provided empirical support for the validity of MMPI-3 scores by reporting correlations with psychosocial history findings collected from police officer, correctional officer, dispatcher, and firefighter candidates.…”