A validity scale, in

psychological testing Psychological testing is the administration of psychological tests. Psychological tests are administered by trained evaluators. A person's responses are evaluated according to carefully prescribed guidelines. Scores are thought to reflect individ ...

, is a scale used in an attempt to measure reliability of responses, for example with the goal of detecting

defensiveness In psychoanalytic theory, a defence mechanism (American English: defense mechanism), is an unconscious psychological operation that functions to protect a person from anxiety-producing thoughts and feelings related to internal conflicts and o ...

malingering Malingering is the fabrication, feigning, or exaggeration of physical or psychological symptoms designed to achieve a desired outcome, such as relief from duty or work. Malingering is not a medical diagnosis, but may be recorded as a "focus of c ...

, or careless or random responding. For example, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory has validity scales to measure questions not answered; client "faking good"; client "faking bad" (in first half of test); denial/evasiveness; client "faking bad" (in last half of test); answering similar/opposite question pairs inconsistently; answering questions all true/all false; honesty of test responses/not faking good or bad; "appearing excessively good"; frequency of presentation in clinical setting; and overreporting of

somatic symptom A somatic symptom disorder, formerly known as a somatoform disorder,(2013) dsm5.org. Retrieved April 8, 2014. is any mental disorder that manifests as physical symptoms that suggest illness or injury, but cannot be explained fully by a general ...

s. The

Personality Assessment Inventory Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), developed by Leslie Morey (1991, 2007), is a self-report 344-item personality test that assesses a respondent's personality and psychopathology. Each item is a statement about the respondent that the resp ...

has validity scales to measure inconsistency (the degree to which respondents answer similar questions in the same way), infrequency (the degree to which respondents rate extremely bizarre or unusual statements as true),

positive impression Positive is a property of positivity and may refer to: Mathematics and science * Positive formula, a logical formula not containing negation * Positive number, a number that is greater than 0 * Plus sign, the sign "+" used to indicate a pos ...

(the degree to which respondents describe themselves in a positive light), and

negative impression Negative may refer to: Science and mathematics * Negative number * Negative mass * Negative energy * Negative charge, one of the two types of electric charge * Negative (electrical polarity), in electric circuits * Negative result (disamb ...

(the degree to which respondents describe themselves in a negative light). The

Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwee ...

has two validity scales (Confusion and Defensiveness). The

Inwald Personality Inventory {{Short description, Personality test The Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) is a standardized personality test of adult pathology and personality. The IPI is utilized by public safety services to assess the fit of possible employees in public safet ...

has one validity scale, the Guardedness Scale, measuring

social desirability In social science research, social-desirability bias is a type of response bias that is the tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. It can take the form of over-reporting "good behavi ...

. The usefulness of the currently-existing validity scales is sometimes questioned. One theory is that subjects in tests of validity scales are given instructions (e.g. to fake the best impression of themselves or to fake an emotionally disturbed person) that virtually guarantee the detection of faking. The tests may not be designed to detect role faking. Some commonly used tests do not include validity scales, and are readily faked due to their high face validity.

References

Psychological testing {{psychology-stub