The differential responding of college students to subtle and obvious MCMI subscales

This study investigated the differential responding of 49 male and 92 female college students to subtle and obvious MCMI scale items. It had been predicted that item subtlety would be correlated positively with item endorsement. This prediction was supported across all 175 MCMI items (r = .34). In addition, subjects endorsed a greater percentage of subtle than obvious subscale items for eight Basic Personality scales and two of three Pathological Personality scales. However, this pattern was not consistent for the nine Symptom Disorder scales. It also had been predicted that gender would moderate subjects' differential responding to subtle and obvious items, whereby males would show a greater tendency than females to endorse relatively more subtle than obvious items. This prediction was not supported.