Relationships among clinical and validity scales of the Basic Personality Inventory

In interpreting the results of a self-report inventory it is important to evaluate the extent to which stylistic distortion may have been operative. This task is complicated because validity measures frequently are confounded with content measures. In order to evaluate the potential utility of the validity measures for the Basic Personality Inventory (BPI) the relationships between validity measures and content scales were evaluated in a sample of 71 inmates. While some validity indices had significant correlations with content scales, other validity indices were relatively independent of the content scales. Recommendations are provided for using the BPI validity scales.