MMPI-2 Profiles Among Asian American Missionary Candidates: Gendered Comparisons for Ethnicity and Population Norms

There is currently a significant dearth of literature pertaining to the use of popular assessment instruments with ethnic minorities, including the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)-2. We examined standard MMPI-2 Scale scores from a sample of 508 male (n = 43 Asian Americans) and 665 female (n = 71 Asian Americans) missionary candidates, comparing scale means between ethnicities by gender and, for the Asian American participants, with the gendered MMPI-2 normative samples. Our within-sample findings support the existing literature with regard to Asian Americans obtaining higher mean scores than Whites for scales F, L, and D (among women), and scale Si (both men and women), while comparison with the MMPI-2 norms supported these findings for scales L and D. Other within-sample clinical scale differences were also observed, but mean scores for all these scales were in the modal range and do not suggest an ethnically distinct interpretive strategy. Religious and candidacy influences were a plausible explanation for most of the obtained validity scale means. However, among Asian American women, L scale elevations were significantly higher and may reflect the continuing relevance of ethnic considerations in evaluating MMPI-2 profile validity among even fairly acculturated women. Thus, our findings both support some of the existent research and validate the need for further studies of specific Asian American subgroups.