Utility of the deceptive-subtle items in the detection of malingering

The aim of this study was to assess the capacity of a recently developed set of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) subtle items-the Deceptive-Subtle scale (DS)-to detect fake-bad responding on the MMPI-2, relative to the capacity of the F scale and the sum of obvious items (Ob) and sum of subtle items (Su) scales. The MMPI-2 was administered to a sample of research participants asked to fake-bad (n = 74), and compared to psychiatric outpatients (n = 100) and nonclinical participants (n = 100) asked to respond honestly. Although the DS scale proved to be a better predictor of fake-bad response style than Su, and comparable to that of Ob, its predictive capacity was substantially less than that of F. Future research is needed to explore the potentially unique contribution of both DS and Ob to assess different strategies of faking-bad.