There was a little discussion of the MMPI previously here
Having taken the MMPI once for a job and had the reviewer pull out answers to specific questions to talk to me about, I can say with certainty I would never take the test again for any reason, especially a job.
[QUOTEOne of the yes/no statements on the MMPI is ‘people stare at me in restaurants.’ Deaf people invariably answer yes to this question. I can assure you from firsthand experience that people do stare very intently in restaurants at people who are using a signed language. So personally, I am skeptical of this type of clinical assessment.[/QUOTE]
In Richard Feynman’s book, Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman? he describes being interviewed by psychologists for the military draft, They ask him, “Do people stare at you?” They’re in a large room, with lots of people dressed in their underwear waiting to be interviewed, and no other diversions, so he says “Yes, yes sometimes people do.” and turns around. Sure enough, there’s somebody looking at him, there’s not much else to look at, so Feynman points and says, “That guy there, he’s looking at me.” Others waiting to be interviewed see Feynman pointing at somebody, and start looking at him also, so he says, " And that guy, and him, and him over there, they’re all staring at me." And sure enough they were. He got a psyhological deferment based on the fact that people did indeed stare at him.
I’m fairly sane I think, but would answer NO, NEVER to that Q. Black would be the color, OK, but tarry, would connote some thick, stickiness, that I have never found. If tarry wasn’t meant to be a color then, it would be redundant given “black.”
I’m glad no one ever asked me.
From that thread:
The simple fact of the matter is that I don’t know if I’ve ever had a black, tarry bowel movement. 99% of the time, I don’t inspect the stuff—I just make the deposit and depress the handle. So how is the clinician supposed to interpret a response to this question? If you say ‘no, I’ve never had a black, tarry bowel movement, and I’m highly offended that you should even ask such an improprietous question,’ then you’re clearly being evasive, since everybody has had a black tarry poo once in awhile, and you’ve got something to hide, Bubba. On the other hand, if I acknowledge that I’ve had a BTBM (let’s simplify if we can) then I’m clearly a hypochondriac who fanatically dissects every gram of excrement that I produce. Therefore, I’m not going to get the job, since I’ll most likely be running to the bathroom every half hour to wash my hands. :rolleyes:
I saw that same question on a test I took for a local police department position about 10 years ago. I wrote it off as a control question.
The question literally reads, at least when I took the test last year:
“My bowels are black and tarry.”
It does not read “My bowel movements are black and tarry”.
I took pictures of the entire test and all my answers using my Sony CLIE PDA. I just double-checked the question.
This changes the meaning somewhat, in my mind towards a more nutjob meaning for those answering “yes”.
Flipshod, tarry is indeed a matter of texture rather than color. Black stools can run the gamut from hard and dry to tarry, depending on why the stool is black and what else is in the digestive system with it. Tarry stool is, near as I can tell, pretty much always an indicator that some very unhappy things are going on in the body. Black stool is sometimes just an indicator that there’s been a dietary change of some type, sometimes due to medication, and sometimes a symptom of a problem. Most healthy people have had black stool at some point (nearly everybody’s had at least one dose of Pepto in their lifetime), but healthy people shouldn’t have tarry stool.
And, of course, the question says bowels rather than bowel movements. If someone tells me their bowels are dark and tarry, I’m left with one of three interpretations: 1) they assumed it was a typo, and the question was meant to read bowel movements 2) they weren’t paying attention and didn’t notice that it said bowels rather than bowel movements or 3) they’re either crazy or sadly misinformed and actually think their bowels are dark and tarry.
Is it possible this indicates drug abuse, such as abuse of heroin? Has anyone here ever seen the movie “Trainspotting”?