Validity of MMPI Sex Offender Scales With Admitters and Nonadmitters

This study compared 130 male sex offenders with 239 male controls on MMPI special scales of sexual deviance. Offenders differed from controls on 3 sexual deviance scales, but these differences were accounted for by admitters alone. Comparison of admitters with controls who had a comparable degree of psychopathology showed that the differences were not based on general psychopathology. On the same 3 sexual deviance scales, nonadmitters differed from a control group that had comparable defensiveness, showing that nonadmitters could be discriminated from nonoffenders on the basis of sexual deviance and not simply on defensiveness. The results have implications for the eventual development of procedures for assessing sexually deviant men even when they do not admit their offenses.