MMPI-2 Personality Characteristics of Parents in Child Custody Litigation with Intimate Partner Violence Allegation

This study used a quantitative approach to explore the personality characteristics of 119 parents involved in child custody litigation. All participants completed an MMPI-2 as part of their evaluation, and were gathered through archival data secondary to child custody litigation. Congruent with the previous literature, the present study revealed a significant difference in mean t-scores between the alleged intimate partner violence perpetrator group and the child custody normative group on the MMPI-2 Pa scale. However, no other significant differences on MMPI-2 mean t-scores were found between the alleged perpetrator group and the normative custody group. The present study also found significant differences in mean t-scores on the MMPI-2 clinical scale Ma between the non-offending child custody group and the normative custody group. However, this difference was not clinically meaningful as the mean t-scores were within the average range. No significant differences in mean t-scores were found on the MMPI-2 clinical scales between the alleged perpetrator group and the non-offending group. Furthermore, this study did not find mean average t-score elevations not in the clinical range between the three groups (alleged perpetrator group, non-offending group, normative group) nor any significant differences in mean t-scores between the alleged perpetrator group and the non-offending group on the Supplemental, Content, and PSY-5 scales. The contribution of the present study expanded mental health practitioners' and jurists' conceptualizations of potential perpetrators of domestic violence and potential non-offending victims of domestic violence in child custody cases. This study further demonstrated that parents with allegations of domestic violence and the non-offending parent profile generally had average mean t-scores on the MMPI-2. Thus, the MMPI-2 would not be a good assessment measure to ascertain perpetration of or victimization from intimate partner violence.