Going Deep Into the Assessment of Personality Disorders: The Clinical Utility of the MCMI-III Grossman Facet Scales

The Millon Clinial Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III; Millon, Millon, Davis, & Grossman, 2009) is a psychological assessment measure developed to provide information on clinical symptoms and personality disorders (PDs) based on Millon (1986)’s Evolutionary Theory. Recently, the Grossman Facet Scales (Grossman, 2004; Millon, Millon, Davis, & Grossman, 2006) were introduced to evaluate the most salient facets of each PD scale. The aims of the current study were: (a) to examine the hypothesized subscale structure of the PD scales and (b) to report on the convergent validity of the MCMI-III Grossman Facet Scales with the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991, 2007) scales and subscales. To test whether the factor structure of each PD scale might replicate Grossman’s findings, we computed a series of CFAs (i.e., one for each PD scale) considering the items of each facet as observed variables and the facets as latent factors correlated to each other. Confirmatory factor models were estimated in a clinical, Italian sample (n = 992). To provide data on the convergent validity of the Grossman Facet Scales with the PAI scales and subscales, we administered the MCMI-III along with the PAI to 298 Italian outpatients and then we conducted a canonical correlation analysis (CCA). The results indicated that the hypothesized subscale structure was confirmed by observed data and highlighted features shared between the MCMI-III and the PAI. Overall, our findings contributed to enhance confidence in the validity and utility of the Grossman Facet Scales.