The Characteristic MMPI Profile Patterns of Japanese Delinquent Boys

Abstract

In our previous survey (1969) we could see Japanese delinguent youngsters show certain characteristic traits on the MMPI profiles. The subjects were boys in short-term custody for pre-trial diagnosis at the juvenile classification homes. The main MMPI code classes they provided according to the Japanese T-values were as follows: 43, 46, 4-, 42 and 49. They were conciderably different from the results of the Minnesota survey (1953) which had indicated following code patterns as typical among Minnesota delinquent boys: 49, 46 and 48.

It was suggested that our delinquent boys in general would be less aggressive and hostile in character than those in Minnesota. Because it seemed that 43 or 42 were likely to represent more passive personality features than 49 and 48, not only from the impression of their component scale names, but also on the following facts:

(1) the falling trend of the number of offences committed, especially of violences, in our country, and

(2) rather passive tendency of the subjects’ personality pictiures, which were described by clinical psychologists independently of the MMPI data.

In order to recognize above assumptions, present study was attempted with similar procedure at an interval of a decade.

As a result, some of the facts which are recoginized in this study are likely to conform to the assumptions.

(1) As the highest-point code, 4 is alone in higher frequency than previous one, and only 9 is in lower.

(2) In percentage of two-point codes occurrence, 4- and 41 are both larger than previous ones, and none is smaller.

(3) The mean MMPI profile is coded as ’43-x, but it could be convertible into 42’8763150-x, if applied to the Minnesota T-values. The converted code 42 on the Minnesota standard covers 41% of cases out or our whole sample.