Low-end specificity of four depression measures: Findings and suggestions for the research use of depression tests

Past research has found that very low scorers on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) tend to respond in a ''fake-good'' manner on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) validity scales. This finding was interpreted as evidence of poor ''low-end specificity.'' This study replicated and extended this work by evaluating the low-end specificity of four popular depression measures. The evidence of problems with low-end specificity was strong for the BDI and marginal for the Profile of Mood States depression subscale. Interestingly, MMPI scores in the ''normal'' range were associated with ''fake-good'' responding, whereas very low and high scores were not. There was no evidence of an association between fake-good responding and scores on Exner's Depression Index for the Rorschach. Implications of these findings and guidelines for dealing with problems with low-end specificity in research are discussed.