Replacing the Child Custody “Gunfighter” With the Behavioral Scientist

PsycCRITIQUES ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 51 (16) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Henley Woody
Keyword(s):  
Child Custody ◽  
Behavioral Scientist

MMPI-2 in Child Custody Litigation

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Roma ◽  
Federica Ricci ◽  
Georgios D. Kotzalidis ◽  
Luigi Abbate ◽  
Anna Lubrano Lavadera ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Child Custody ◽  
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory ◽  
Personality Inventory ◽  
Custody Evaluations ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Female Population ◽  
Clinical Scales ◽  
Forensic Assessments ◽  
Child Custody Evaluations ◽  
Italian Women

In recent years, several studies have addressed the issue of positive self-presentation bias in assessing parents involved in postdivorce child custody litigations. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) is widely used in forensic assessments and is able to evaluate positive self-presentation through its Superlative Self-Presentation S scale. We investigated the existence of a gender effect on positive self-presentation bias in an Italian sample of parents involved in court evaluation. Participants were 391 divorced parents who completed the full 567-item Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 during child custody evaluations ordered by several Italian courts between 2006 and 2010. Our analysis considered the S scale along with the basic clinical scales. North-American studies had shown no gender differences in child custody litigations. Differently, our results showed a significantly higher tendency toward “faking-good” profiles on the MMPI-2 among Italian women as compared to men and as compared to the normative Italian female population. Cultural and social factors could account for these differences.

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