Can psychosis be malingered on the Rorschach? An empirical study

Can psychosis be faked on the Rorschach? We examined this question by comparing 2 groups of subjects with a high incentive to malinger, persons accused of serious crimes. All subjects were administered both the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Rorschach and were assigned to honest (N = 35) and malingered (N = 13) groups on the basis of MMPI validity scales. The Rorschach protocols of these 2 groups were compared to assess how successfully malingerers could deliberately produce records that appeared psychotic on empirically derived Rorschach indices of psychosis. Despite an attempt to portray themselves as psychotic on the MMPI, subjects in the malingered group did not differ from honest responders on Rorschach variables that distinguish psychotic from nonpsychotic patients, but did differ in the number of dramatic responses produced. Our data suggest that the combination of the MMPI and Rorschach provides a powerful psychometric technique for detecting deliberate malingering of psychosis.