Development of a combined objective ephebophile scale

Abstract

Abstract In two prior studies, item-level analyses of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (MCMI-II) and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) were conducted to construct an MCMI-II scale and an MMPI-2 scale that could discriminate priest same-sex ephebophiles from priests with nonsexual psychiatric disorders. The resulting 11 -item MCMI-II scale and the 16-item MMPI-2 scale were combined in the present study to determine if they can better discriminate these two groups than either scale by itself. The ability of the combined 11-item scale from the MCMI-II and the 16-item scale from the MMPI-2 (i.e., the combined scale) to discriminate the two groups when compared to the ability of these scales individually to discriminate these two groups was statistically significant. Not only did the Combined-Scale classify more participants correctly than the individual scales, but unlike the 11 -item MCMI-II scale its internal consistency was more robust. It was further suggested that though specially constructed scales from objective personality tests are useful in identifying priest ephebophiles, they must be used in conjunction with other methods of identification.