CCLs are also often characterized by impaired psychological functioning, poor coping strategies, and unrealistic ideas of themselves and others ( 1, 2), despite their tendency to present themselves as psychologically stable and responsible ( 3– 7).Īn overwhelming proportion of child custody evaluations involve psychometric measures, which are predominantly used to assess the personality characteristics and functioning of the litigants. Parental couples are among the more problematic in the judicial setting, as they are often in litigation over economic issues and may be less amenable to mediation agreements aimed at securing the best interests of their child. When assessing parental fitness, examiners evaluate factors such as the social context, the child’s condition, the relationship between each parent and the child, and the personality characteristics of the child custody litigants (CCLs). Among all couples who request a separation in Italy, 15–20% are subjected to psychological evaluation as part of a parental skills assessment this percentage was released by the Supreme Court of Appeal of Rome on December 4, 2018, at the “New questions in parental competency on child custody” congress. In any child custody evaluation, parental adequacy must be assessed in order to guarantee the best interests of the child. This highlights the necessity to interpret CCL profiles in light of normative data collected specifically in a forensic setting and the need for new and promising methods of mainstreaming and administering the MMPI-2-RF. The results show that almost half of the MMPI-2-RF protocols in the CCL sample were worthless due to their demonstration of an underreporting attitude. Approximately 44% of the MMPI-2-RF profiles were deemed possibly underreporting and, for this reason, considered worthless.ĭiscussion: The present study adds useful insight about which instruments are effective for assessing the personality characteristics of parents undergoing a parental skills assessment in the context of a child custody dispute. Two-step cluster analyses identified three female CCL profiles and two male CCL profiles. Women appeared deeply motivated to display a faking-good defensive profile, together with lower levels of cynicism and antisocial behaviors, compared to CCL men. Intercorrelations within the RC scales significantly differed between CCL and normative samples. RC6 (Ideas of Persecution) was the most elevated. Results: CCL subjects reported higher scores in underreporting (L-r and K-r) and lower scores in overreporting validity scales and restructured clinical (RC) scales, with the exception of RC2 and RC8. To test the hypotheses, multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) and two-step cluster analyses were run. The 196 fathers were aged 20–59 years ( M = 42.31 SD = 7.8), with an average of 14.48 years ( SD = 3.9) of education.
Mothers had a mean educational level of 14.48 years ( SD = 3.2). The mean age of the 204 mothers was 41.31 years ( SD = 6.6), with an overall range of 24–59 years. Materials and Methods: The sample comprised 400 CCLs undergoing personality evaluation as part of a parenting skills assessment. The study also analyzed gender differences in a CCL sample, general CCL profiles, and the implicit structure of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) in the CCL sample. The study hypothesized that personality self-report measures completed by child custody litigants (CCLs) during a parental skills assessment would show underreporting, rendering the measures worthless.
d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italyīackground and Purpose: A psychological assessment of parents in post-divorce child custody disputes highlighted parents’ motivation to appear as adaptive and responsible caregivers. 2Department of Psychological, Health, and Territorial Sciences, G.1Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.A new addition to the validity scales for the MMPI-2 RF includes an over reporting scale of somatic symptoms scale (Fs).Cristina Mazza 1, Franco Burla 1, Maria Cristina Verrocchio 2, Daniela Marchetti 2, Alberto Di Domenico 2, Stefano Ferracuti 1 and Paolo Roma 1* The validity scales in all versions of the MMPI-2 (MMPI-2 and RF) contain three basic types of validity measures: those that were designed to detect non-responding or inconsistent responding (CNS, VRIN, TRIN), those designed to detect when clients are over reporting or exaggerating the prevalence or severity of psychological symptoms (F, Fb, Fp, FBS), and those designed to detect when test-takers are under-reporting or downplaying psychological symptoms (L, K, S).