Sins of the Fathers and Mothers: Relationships Between Parental History Variables and Adult MMPI Profiles

Self-report data on parental history variables--child abuse, father and mother alcoholism, parental mental illness, and father's level of education--were gathered from 469 male and female inpatients at the Florida Mental Health Institute in Tampa, Florida. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was administered within the first 72 hours of admission. Discriminant function analyses with step-down procedures were performed to determine the effectiveness of the MMPI profiles in discriminating between parental history groups. Each gender was run separately. When comparing patients with no pathological parent history to groups reporting at least one, the chi square was found to be significant for male groups but not for female groups. For the abuse variable and alcoholic father variable, the discriminant function was significant for males but not for females. For alcoholic mother, parental mental illness and father's education level variables, the discriminant function was significant for both gender groups. Several multivariate analyses of variance were performed pairing every variable with every other variable to investigate possible interactions and to test for unique variance. Parental mental illness was significant for female groups; father education was significant for male groups. Male groups reported significantly higher counts of parental pathologies. Male MMPI mean scores were also higher than female MMPI scores. Gender differences were discussed and suggestions were made to continue research on gender differences within the framework of parental history variables.