Subtle-obvious ratings of MMPI items: New interest in an old concept

75 male and 63 female undergraduates rated all 566 MMPI items, answered true and false, on a 5-point subtle-obvious scale. Reliability of ratings was assessed via responses to duplicate items; the reliability coefficients were .98 for items answered true and .91 for items answered false. Males and females gave very similar ratings; correlations were .94 and .90 for true and false items, respectively. Mean ratings for all Ss showed that the F and Sc scales were most obvious and the Mf and Si scales were least obvious with regard to pathology. The correlation between obviousness ratings and desirability ratings was -.78. Analysis of previous measures of the subtlety-obviousness dimension in terms of the present item ratings indicated that previous measures did not adequately represent the very subtle or very obvious extremes of the distribution. (20 ref)