Psychopathy and community violence among civil psychiatric patients: Results from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study.

Although psychopathy is recognized as a relatively strong risk factor for violence among inmates and mentally disordered offenders, few studies have examined the extent to which its predictive power generalizes to civil psychiatric samples. Using data on 1,136 patients from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment project, this study examined whether the 2 scales that underlie the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) measure a unique personality construct that predicts violence among civil patients. The results indicate that the PCL:SV is a relatively strong predictor of violence. The PCL:SV's predictive power is substantially reduced, but remains significant, after controlling for a host of covariates that reflect antisocial behavior and personality disorders other than psychopathy. However, the predictive power of the PCL:SV is not based on its assessment of the core traits of psychopathy, as traditionally construed. Implications for the 2-factor model that underlies the PCL measures and for risk assessment practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing the basic traits associated with psychopathy: Development and validation of the Elemental Psychopathy Assessment.

A new self-report assessment of the basic traits of psychopathy was developed with a general trait model of personality (five-factor model [FFM]) as a framework. Scales were written to assess maladaptive variants of the 18 FFM traits that are robustly related to psychopathy across a variety of perspectives including empirical correlations, expert ratings, and translations of extant assessments. Across 3 independent undergraduate samples (N = 210–354), the Elemental Psychopathy Assessment (EPA) scales proved to be internally consistent and unidimensional, and were strongly related to the original FFM scales from which they were derived (mean convergent r = .66). The EPA scales also demonstrated substantial incremental validity in the prediction of existing psychopathy measures over their FFM counterparts. When summed to form a psychopathy total score, the EPA was substantially correlated with 3 commonly used psychopathy measures (mean r = .81). Finally, in a small male forensic sample (N = 70), the EPA was significantly correlated with scores on a widely used self-report psychopathy measure, disciplinary infractions, alcohol use, and antisocial behavior. The EPA provides an opportunity to examine psychopathy and its nomological network through smaller, more basic units of personality rather than by scales or factors that blend these elements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathic personality traits associated with abnormal selective attention and impaired cognitive control.

The current study investigated how mechanisms of attention that have been well-characterized in the cognitive psychology literature (Lavie, Hirst, De Fockert, & Viding, 2004; Maylor & Lavie, 1998) may be differentially associated with psychopathic traits in nonincarcerated men. Previous research on cognition and psychopathy indicated that primary psychopathic traits were associated with overfocused attention and/or reduced processing of information peripheral to the focus of attention. Conversely, deficits in executive functioning, such as working memory and cognitive control, were implicated in secondary psychopathic traits. Results revealed a significant relationship between traits typically associated with primary psychopathy (e.g., low anxiety, social dominance, fearlessness, callousness) and reduced processing of task-irrelevant distractors, suggesting diminished basic attentional capacity among individuals high on these traits. In contrast, some characteristics linked to secondary psychopathy (e.g., social alienation, cynicism) showed a positive relationship with impaired working memory functioning, indicative of deficits in cognitive control, whereas other traits (i.e., self-centeredness, antagonism) did not. These results suggest that psychopathic traits are differentially related to selective impairments in attentional functioning, which may help explain the observed heterogeneity in psychopathic manifestations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do core interpersonal and affective traits of PCL-R psychopathy interact with antisocial behavior and disinhibition to predict violence?

The utility of psychopathy measures in predicting violence is largely explained by their assessment of social deviance (e.g., antisocial behavior; disinhibition). A key question is whether social deviance interacts with the core interpersonal-affective traits of psychopathy to predict violence. Do core psychopathic traits multiply the (already high) risk of violence among disinhibited individuals with a dense history of misbehavior? This meta-analysis of 32 effect sizes (N = 10,555) tested whether an interaction between the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 2003) Interpersonal-Affective and Social Deviance scales predicted violence beyond the simple additive effects of each scale. Results indicate that Social Deviance is more uniquely predictive of violence (d = .40) than Interpersonal-Affective traits (d = .11), and these two scales do not interact (d = .00) to increase power in predicting violence. In fact, Social Deviance alone would predict better than the Interpersonal-Affective scale and any interaction in 81% and 96% of studies, respectively. These findings have fundamental practical implications for risk assessment and theoretical implications for some conceptualizations of psychopathy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An examination of the structure of self-report psychopathy measures and their relations with general traits and externalizing behaviors.

Self-report assessment of psychopathy is plagued by inconsistencies among the relations of the various psychopathy factors. We examined the factor structure of 3 prominent self-report measures of psychopathy—the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale–III (SRP–III; Williams, Paulhus, & Hare, 2007), the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP; Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995), and the Psychopathic Personality Inventory–R (PPI–R; Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005). A coherent 4-factor structure resulted from conducting an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the psychopathy subscales along with the domains from the five-factor model. Two of these factors were consistent with traditional conceptualizations of a 2-factor structure of psychopathy (i.e., Factor 1, which loaded negatively with Agreeableness; Factor 2, which loaded negatively with Conscientiousness), while 2 additional factors emerged, 1 of which emphasized low Neuroticism and 1 of which emphasized traits related to novelty/reward-seeking and dominance-related personality traits (high Extraversion). We also investigated the relations of these factors with a variety of externalizing behaviors (EB). The psychopathy scales indicative of interpersonal antagonism (i.e., Factor 1) were most consistently and strongly related to EB. Our findings are discussed in terms of the importance of a trait-based perspective in the assessment of psychopathy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identifying persistently antisocial offenders using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist and DSM antisocial personality disorder criteria.

Early starting, lifetime criminal persistence has been called sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder, and psychopathy. There is, however, disagreement about its core features and which measure is best for identifying such individuals. In the 1st of 2 studies of male offenders (n = 74), we found a large association between scores on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) antisocial personality disorder criteria scored as a scale. The second study (n = 684) replicated this finding and found that, as previously shown for PCL-R scores, a discrete class (or taxon) also underlies scores on items reflecting antisocial personality disorder. The high association among these sets of items and their similarity in predicting violence suggested that the same natural class underlies each. Results indicated that life-course-persistent antisociality can be assessed well by measures of psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathy, IQ, and Violence in European American and African American County Jail Inmates.

The accuracy of the prediction of criminal violence may be improved by combining psychopathy with other variables that have been found to predict violence. Research has suggested that assessing intelligence (i.e., IQ) as well as psychopathy improves the accuracy of violence prediction. In the present study, the authors tested this hypothesis by using a contemporary measure of psychopathy, the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (R. D. Hare, 2003), in a sample of 326 European American and 348 African American male offenders. The postdictive power of psychopathy was evident for both ethnic groups and robust across most changes in the operationalization of violence and the analysis conducted, whereas the postdictive power of IQ was not. No Psychopathy x IQ interactions were identified. Implications of these results for violence prediction are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Detecting psychopathy from thin slices of behavior.

This study is the first to demonstrate that features of psychopathy can be reliably and validly detected by lay raters from “thin slices” (i.e., small samples) of behavior. Brief excerpts (5 s, 10 s, and 20 s) from interviews with 96 maximum-security inmates were presented in video or audio form or in both modalities combined. Forty raters used these excerpts to complete assessments of overall psychopathy and its Factor 1 and Factor 2 components, various personality disorders, violence proneness, and attractiveness. Thin-slice ratings of psychopathy correlated moderately and significantly with psychopathy criterion measures, especially those related to interpersonal features of psychopathy, particularly in the 5- and 10-s excerpt conditions and in the video and combined channel conditions. These findings demonstrate that first impressions of psychopathy and related constructs, particularly those pertaining to interpersonal functioning, can be reasonably reliable and valid. They also raise intriguing questions regarding how individuals form first impressions and about the extent to which first impressions may influence the assessment of personality disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathic traits from the perspective of self and informant reports: Is there evidence for a lack of insight?

It has been suggested that psychopathic individuals are incapable of providing valid reports on their own personality functioning because they are either unwilling (i.e., pathologically lie) or unable (i.e. lack insight) to do so. Despite the long-standing nature of this suggestion, almost no empirical research exists on this topic. In the current study, the authors examined the issue of psychopathy and insight by testing self and informant convergence and mean level differences across 3 indices of psychopathy in a community sample (N = 64). Self- and informant-report psychopathy scores were also examined in relation to self and informant reports on traits from the Five-Factor Model (FFM). Convergence was strong across the 3 psychopathy indices and their respective factors (i.e., median r = .64), and there was only modest evidence that individuals rated themselves as less psychopathic than did informants. In addition, the same FFM domains—low Agreeableness and Conscientiousness—characterized individuals with psychopathic traits regardless of reporter. Psychopathic individuals appear capable of reporting accurately on psychopathic traits when there are no direct consequences to accurate reporting (i.e., sentencing). It may be that the lack of concern for the consequences of these traits has been mistaken for a lack of insight into them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathic traits in a large community sample: Links to violence, alcohol use, and intelligence.

Numerous studies conducted with offender or forensic psychiatric samples have revealed that individuals with psychopathic traits are at risk for violence and other externalizing psychopathology. These traits appear to be continuously distributed in these samples, leading investigators to speculate on the presence of such traits in the general population. Nonetheless, few studies of psychopathy have been conducted with large random samples of individuals from the community. The community sample from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study provides an opportunity to examine the prevalence and structural nature of psychopathic traits, as well as their association with external correlates in an urban community. The community data (N = 514) represent a stratified random sample of persons between the ages of 18 and 40 who were assessed on the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL: SV) and also for violent behavior, alcohol use, and intellectual functioning. Structural equation model analyses revealed that a 4-factor model found in offender and forensic psychiatric samples fit the community data well and was invariant across sex and ethnicity. Also, a superordinate factor comprehensively accounted for the 4 psychopathy first-order factors and significantly predicted the external correlates. The findings offer insight into the dimensional nature of the psychopathy construct. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Machiavellianism and psychopathy.

An integration of the Machiavellianism (MACH) and psychopathy constructs based on a dimensional view of personality and personality disorders and a recognition of B. Karpman's (1941, 1948) conceptual distinction between primary and secondary psychopathy is presented. Positive associations between MACH and both primary and secondary psychopathy were found. It is concluded that the Mach-lV is a global measure of psychopathy in noninstitutionalized populations (i.e., one that assesses but confounds both primary and secondary psychopathy) and that the primary differences between MACH and psychopathy are not traceable to substantive theoretical issues but to the different professional affiliations they are associated with: personality and social psychology and clinical psychology, respectively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathy in a noninstitutional sample: Differences in primary and secondary subtypes.

Early theoretical conceptualizations suggest psychopathy is a heterogeneous construct whereby psychopathic individuals are found in diverse populations. The current study examined male and female psychopathy subtypes in a large sample of undergraduate students (n = 1229). Model-based cluster analysis of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Short Form (PPI-SF) revealed two clusters in both male and female students. In males, the primary subtype evidenced greater psychopathic personality traits (i.e., Social Potency, Fearlessness, and Impulsive Nonconformity) and lower anxiety (i.e., higher Stress Immunity), whereas the secondary subtype displayed fewer psychopathic personality traits (i.e., Machiavellian Egocentricity and Blame Externalization) and higher anxiety (i.e., lower Stress Immunity). In females, the primary subtype exhibited higher scores across all PPI-SF subscales and lower anxiety whereas the secondary subtype reported lower PPI-SF subscale scores and higher anxiety. Across a diverse array of personality, affective, and behavioral external correlates, differences between the subtypes and with nonpsychopaths emerged. Implications for psychopathy in noninstitutional populations with respect to theory, research, and gender are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathy and violence: The importance of factor level interactions.

The power of scales based on the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL; R. D. Hare, 1980) for prediction of violent behavior is well established. Although evidence suggests that this relationship is chiefly due to the impulsive and antisocial lifestyle component (Factor 2), the predictive power of psychopathy for violence may also reflect the multiplicative effects of this component with interpersonal and unemotional traits (Factor 1). The determination of the extent to which psychopathy subcomponents interact to predict violence has theoretical and practical implications for PCL-assessed psychopathy. However, the relationship between violence and the interactive effects of psychopathy subcomponents remains largely undetermined. The authors used prospective and cross-sectional designs to examine the independent and interactive effects of the factors of PCL-assessed psychopathy in 2 samples: (a) 199 county jail inmates and (b) 863 civil psychiatric patients. The Factor 1 × Factor 2 interaction predicted violence in both samples, such that the predictive power of Factor 2 was attenuated at lower levels of Factor 1. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessment of psychopathy as a function of age.

The assessment of psychopathy was examined as a function of age in 889 male prison inmates between the ages of 16 and 69. Ratings of psychopathy were made with the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL), which measures 2 correlated factors. Factor 1 describes a cluster of affective-interpersonal traits central to psychopathy. Factor 2 describes traits and behaviors associated with an unstable, unsocialized lifestyle, or social deviance. Cross-sectional analyses revealed that mean scores on Factor 1 were stable across the age-span; mean scores on Factor 2 declined with age. The prevalence of antisocial personality disorder, and, to a lesser extent of PCL-defined psychopathy, also declined with age. The results are consistent with a conceptualization of psychopathy as encompassing 2 correlated but distinct constructs. They also suggest that age-related differences in traits related to impulsivity, social deviance, and antisocial behavior are not necessarily paralleled by differences in the egocentric, manipulative, and callous traits fundamental to psychopathy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The MMPI—2 Antisocial Practices Content Scale: Construct validity and comparison with the Psychopathic Deviate Scale.

Little is known regarding the construct validity of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory—2 Antisocial Practices (ASP) content scale or its differences from the Psychopathic Deviate (Pd) scale. In 3 studies with undergraduates (Ns?=?95, 110, and 100), the ASP scale exhibited convergent and discriminant validity with self-report, interview, family history, and observer measures of psychopathy, personality disorders, and personality traits. The ASP and Pd scales had many similar correlates, but the ASP scale correlated more positively with measures of Machiavellianism and more negatively with interviewer-rated honesty than the Pd scale. The ASP scale demonstrated incremental validity over and above the Pd scale for global indexes of psychopathy and antisocial behavior. Neither scale related highly to the absence of stress and interpersonal anxiety characteristic of psychopathy. The ASP and Pd scales, although overlapping in content, appear to measure somewhat different facets of the psychopathy construct. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Criterion-related validity of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory in a prison sample.

The Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI; S. 0. Lilienfeld & B. P. Andrews, 1996), a self-report measure of psychopathic personality features, and R. D. Hare's (1991) Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL–R) were administered to adult youthful offender prison inmates (N?=?50). As hypothesized, PPI scores were significantly correlated with scores on the PCL–R, providing evidence of concurrent validity for the PPI. Moreover, unlike existing self-report psychopathy measures, the PPI showed a moderate and positive correlation with PCL–R Factor 1 (i.e., the core personality traits of psychopathy). Discriminant function analysis using the optimal PPI total score value to predict PCL–R classifications of psychopath (n?=?10) and nonpsychopath (n?=?40) resulted in accurate classification of 86% of the cases (sensitivity?=?.50, specificity?=?.95). Results are discussed in terms of the relative merits of these 2 measures of psychopathy and the validation of the PPI for clinical use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathy and violent crime.

Examined the relations between psychopathy, violence, and impulsiveness of criminal behavior within a White prisoner sample of 76 Ss, using level of intelligence as a moderator variable. Prisoners were given the MMPI, the California Psychological Inventory, the Wide Range Achievement Test, and the IPAT Culture Free Intelligence Test (Scale 2). Unlike most prior research, psychopathy was found to be predictive of violence but only for less intelligent criminals; about 90% of this group had committed a violent crime compared to 58% for the remainder of the sample. Similarly, the psychopaths with limited intelligence evidenced the greatest impulsivity in the commission of their crimes relative to bright psychopaths or nonpsychopathic criminals at either level of intelligence. The implications of the findings for the importance of moderating cognitive variables in personality predictions are discussed. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of comorbid psychopathy on criminal offending and emotion processing in male offenders with antisocial personality disorder.

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and psychopathy are two syndromes with substantial construct validity. To clarify relations between these syndromes, the authors evaluated 3 possibilities: (a) that ASPD with psychopathy and ASPD without psychopathy reflect a common underlying pathophysiology; (b) that ASPD with psychopathy and ASPD without psychopathy identify 2 distinct syndromes, similar in some respects; and (c) that most correlates of ASPD reflect its comorbidity with psychopathy. Participants were 472 incarcerated European American men who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (4th ed., American Psychiatric Association, 1994) criteria for ASPD and Psychopathy Checklist criteria for psychopathy, who met the criteria for ASPD but not for psychopathy, or who did not meet diagnostic criteria for either ASPD or psychopathy (controls). Both individuals with ASPD only and those with ASPD and psychopathy were characterized by more criminal activity than were controls. In addition, ASPD with psychopathy was associated with more severe criminal behavior and weaker emotion facilitation than ASPD alone. Group differences in the association between emotion dysfunction and criminal behavior suggest tentatively that ASPD with and ASPD without prominent psychopathic features may be distinct syndromes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect, personality, and facial expressive characteristics of older people.

This study explored the relationship between emotion-based personality traits and expressive patterns in older subjects. Specifically, the study sought to demonstrate (a) that individuals have emotion expression biases, as revealed by structural and dynamic properties of the face, and (b) that there is a link between facial characteristics (as indexed by the judgments of trained and naive raters) and personality traits. An encoding/decoding paradigm was used; 30 adult, naive judges rated five emotion-pose photographs for each of 14 older subjects who had also completed a personality trait measure. Results indicated that individuals vary in their ability to accurately encode emotion states and that these patterns are linked to personality traits in an affect-specific way. The results are discussed within the framework of Darwinian theory and Plutchik's model of personality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)