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Home/Historical IQ Tests/MMPI 1943
Reference entry · 1943 · University of Minnesota7 cited sources

The MMPI: keep the items that separate the groups.

Starke Hathaway and J. Charnley McKinley developed the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory in the 1930s, publishing it through the University of Minnesota in 1942.6 Its scales were built by contrasting how clinical patients and "normals" answered, and it is probably the most widely used multidimensional tool for helping diagnose mental health disorders.1,7

Build a scale empirically →Cite this page
AT A GLANCE
AuthorsStarke Hathaway (clinical psychologist) and J. C. McKinley (neuropsychiatrist) 1
WhereUniversity of Minnesota hospital 6
DevelopmentBegun 1939; developed in the 1930s 1,6
Published1942, through the University of Minnesota 6
FormatStandardized true/false statements 1
MethodNormals contrasted with pathological criterion groups 7
RevisionsMMPI-2 (1989), MMPI-3 (2020) 2
1 · ORIGINS

From a hospital project to a published inventory

Two authors1939
Clinical psychologist Starke Hathaway and neuropsychiatrist J. C. McKinley began developing the test.1
A hospital base1930s
Visitors of patients at the University of Minnesota hospital served as the base sample both for thinking about psychiatric constructs and for fielding the instrument.6
Test-taking attitudes1940s
Hathaway and McKinley noticed respondents shaped the impression they gave, so they built scales to detect attitudes that could invalidate the clinical scales.7

Note on dates: one source says development began in 1939, another places it in the 1930s generally; publication through the University of Minnesota came in 1942, and the MMPI-2 appeared 46 years after the original — hence the usual 1943 citation.1,6,7 The original item count is not verified here; the MMPI-2 has 567 true/false items.3

2 · EMPIRICAL CRITERION KEYING

Built by contrasting criterion groups

1Pool statementsAssemble standardized true/false self-descriptions.1
2Criterion groupsGive them to pathological criterion groups and to a contrasting group of "normals".7
3Cross-validateCheck the scales on a new group of normals and a new clinical group, so items hold up in clinical use.7
3 · THE "MINNESOTA NORMALS"

Hospital visitors as the reference group

The comparison group was drawn from people visiting patients at the University of Minnesota Hospital.6 It was primarily rural, all-White, eighth-grade-educated and predominantly Scandinavian in origin — the original MMPI's most significant limitation.2

The sample was refined in 1957, but no contemporary norms for normal adults were published for decades.5

visitorsBase sample drawn from visitors of patients at the university hospital6
1957Original sample refined5
1982Restandardization project begins2
2,600MMPI-2 normative adults (1,138 men, 1,462 women)3

The widely repeated figure of 724 "Minnesota normals" is reported here only from secondary summaries citing Groth-Marnat (1997); confirm against the original publications before quoting.7

4 · VALIDITY SCALES AND THE K CORRECTION

Checking how someone took the test

?Cannot SayItems left unanswered or answered both true and false.6
LLieAn attempt to present oneself in an overly positive light.6
KCorrection (1946)Meehl and Hathaway's scale for detecting and correcting defensiveness; K-corrected scores are still used in most clinical applications.4
5 · BUILD A SCALE THE MINNESOTA WAY

Which items belong on a "worry" scale?

Tick the statements you think a scale for worried patients should include. Then reveal how each group actually answered.

YOUR PICKS0Pick by what each statement seems to be about — the way logically keyed inventories did.Invented items and endorsement rates, not MMPI content. They illustrate the method: selection by statistical difference between groups, contrasting criterion groups with normals.
6 · REVISIONS

Same scales, new normals

1939
Development beginsHathaway and McKinley.1
1942
PublishedThrough the University of Minnesota.6
1946
K scaleMeehl & Hathaway's correction for defensiveness.4
1957
Norms refinedThe original normative base is refined.5
1982
Restandardization beginsPrompted by the unrepresentative norms and outdated items.2
1989
MMPI-2567 items; normed on 2,600 US adults.3
2020
MMPI-3335 true/false statements with a broader normative sample.2
7 · REFERENCES

Sources cited on this page

  1. [1]What is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)? Simply Psychology (2021).simplypsychology.org
  2. [2]Brokaw, D. W. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). EBSCO Research Starters.ebsco.com
  3. [3]University of Minnesota Press, Test Division. MMPI-2 (norms and product facts).upress.umn.edu/test-division/mmpi-2
  4. [4]University of Minnesota. Frequently asked questions about the Minnesota Reports (K correction; Meehl & Hathaway, 1946).mmpi.umn.edu
  5. [5]The MMPI: A contemporary normative study (1983). ERIC ED233060.eric.ed.gov
  6. [6]Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf (2023).ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  7. [7]Description of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. UKEssays (student essay citing Groth-Marnat, 1997) — secondary; used only where flagged.ukessays.com

Primary sources (not verified here): Hathaway & McKinley's 1940 construction paper and 1942 manual. Confirm bibliographic details before citing them.

HOW TO CITE THIS PAGE
What's Your IQ. (2026). Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI, 1943). In Historical IQ Tests Archive. Retrieved September 29, 2026, from /en/historical-iq-tests/mmpi-1943
EDITORIAL RECORD
First published2026
Last reviewed29 September 2026
Sources7 verified against search results (one secondary); unverified claims removed
Open questionsOriginal item count; normative N (724?); primary-source pages
Canonical URLwhats-your-iq.com/en/historical-iq-tests/mmpi-1943
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Part of the Historical IQ Tests Archive. Editorial content under CC BY-SA 4.0. The MMPI and its revisions are published by the University of Minnesota Press; no items are reproduced.
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