Identifier

etd-04152011-142614

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

As clinical psychologists and neuropsychologists routinely assess individuals in medicolegal and criminal forensic settings, they are faced with the challenge of evaluating and testifying on the validity of these psychological and neuropsychological assessments. Individuals possess various motives for manipulating their responses or performance on psychological and neuropsychological assessment instruments. Malingering refers to poor effort on psychological and neuropsychological tests when an external incentive is present to reward poor performance. Malingering can be assessed by stand-alone measures of effort or measures derived from the response profiles of traditionally administered neuropsychological and psychological tests. Using a dataset from the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales-Fifth Edition (SB-V; Roid, 2003a) validation, the present study derived an embedded validity index from the SB-V to be used in the clinical detection of feigned mental retardation. The author explored the utility of this index in discriminating analog malingerers from individuals with genuine FSIQ scores in the mild mental retardation range (i.e., FSIQ scores from 50 to 75). The newly developed Block Span validity index demonstrated a sensitivity rate of 52% and a specificity rate of 100% in discriminating analog malingerers from individuals with genuine SB-V FSIQ scores in the mild mental retardation range. Analog malingerers in the aforementioned analysis had SB-V FSIQ scores ranging from 40 to 110. When analog malingerers with SB-V FSIQ scores above 85 were excluded from analyses, the sensitivity rate of the Block Span validity index was 63%, and the specificity rate was 100% in detecting feigned mental retardation from genuine impairment.

Date

2011

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Gouvier, William Drew

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.4160

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Psychology Commons

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