TY - JOUR
T1 - Identification of a Pre-Employment Psychological Evaluation Marker for Predicting Police Candidates Who Receive Racial and Excessive Force Complaints
AU - Borgogna, Nicholas C.
AU - Aita, Stephen L.
AU - Musso, Mandi W.
AU - Hill, Benjamin D.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2023/6
Y1 - 2023/6
N2 - Most police officer candidates undergo pre-employment psychological evaluations prior to service. The Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) is a popular tool used by psychologists in these evaluations. The current study attempted to identify embedded markers on the MMPI-2 that evaluators could use to help predict officers who later received a racial and/or excessive force complaint. We examined an archival dataset of 12,616 pre-hire candidate MMPI-2 profiles and post-hire officer supervisor evaluations. In total, only 3.7% (n = 481) of candidates received an excessive force complaint and only 1.2% (n = 152) received a racial complaint. Our sample was split (n’s = 6,308) into an initial validation sample, and an independent confirmation sample. By observing base rates of complaints by T-scores, we identified imbedded thresholds on the MMPI-2 content-based validity scales that significantly predicted which officers received excessive force and race-based complaints. Candidates with F T-scores ≤ 40 or K T-scores ≥ 55 were considered to be most at-risk. In the validation sample, logistic regressions suggested that scores beyond one of these thresholds significantly increased the odds of being in the group of candidates that eventually received an excessive force and/or racial complaint. These thresholds demonstrated better predictive validity than the F-K index. Predictive validity was weaker, but still evident in the independent confirmation sample, and still better than comparison thresholds. However, specificity was poor, likely attributable to the low base rate of complaints. We discuss implications for use of validity scale thresholds in pre-employment evaluations.
AB - Most police officer candidates undergo pre-employment psychological evaluations prior to service. The Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) is a popular tool used by psychologists in these evaluations. The current study attempted to identify embedded markers on the MMPI-2 that evaluators could use to help predict officers who later received a racial and/or excessive force complaint. We examined an archival dataset of 12,616 pre-hire candidate MMPI-2 profiles and post-hire officer supervisor evaluations. In total, only 3.7% (n = 481) of candidates received an excessive force complaint and only 1.2% (n = 152) received a racial complaint. Our sample was split (n’s = 6,308) into an initial validation sample, and an independent confirmation sample. By observing base rates of complaints by T-scores, we identified imbedded thresholds on the MMPI-2 content-based validity scales that significantly predicted which officers received excessive force and race-based complaints. Candidates with F T-scores ≤ 40 or K T-scores ≥ 55 were considered to be most at-risk. In the validation sample, logistic regressions suggested that scores beyond one of these thresholds significantly increased the odds of being in the group of candidates that eventually received an excessive force and/or racial complaint. These thresholds demonstrated better predictive validity than the F-K index. Predictive validity was weaker, but still evident in the independent confirmation sample, and still better than comparison thresholds. However, specificity was poor, likely attributable to the low base rate of complaints. We discuss implications for use of validity scale thresholds in pre-employment evaluations.
KW - Excessive Force
KW - MMPI-2
KW - Police
KW - Pre-Employment Evaluations
KW - Racial Bias
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141992530&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10862-022-10003-x
DO - 10.1007/s10862-022-10003-x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85141992530
SN - 0882-2689
VL - 45
SP - 509
EP - 518
JO - Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment
JF - Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment
IS - 2
ER -