Feigning Specific Disorders: A Study of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI)

Abstract

The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) represents an important development in the assessment of psychopathology. We examined the usefulness of the Negative Impression (NIM) scale to detect naive (undergraduates with minimal preparation) and sophisticated (psychology graduate students with 1 week preparation) subjects simulating specific disorders. We found that the NIM cutting score (> 8) was highly effective with feigned schizophrenia, marginally effective with feigned depression, and ineffective with feigned generalized anxiety disorder. Sophistication did not appear to be relevant to successful feigning, although it did allow graduate students to achieve higher clinical elevations in simulating depression.