Introduction and validation of Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale (PPTS) in a large prison sample

Abstract

PurposeThe aim of this study was to create and validate a brief self-report scale of psychopathic personality traits for research purposes which would grasp the essence of a psychopathic personality, regardless of respondents' age, gender, cultural background, and criminal history. MethodsThe Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale (PPTS), the Measure of Criminal Social Identity, Self-Esteem Measure for Criminals, the Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale, Attitudes Toward Male Sexual Dating Violence, and Lie Scale were administered to 1794 prisoners systematically sampled from 10 maximum- and medium-security prisons. Dimensionality and construct validity of the PPTS was investigated using traditional CFA techniques, along with confirmatory bifactor analysis and multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) modeling. Seven alternative models of the PPTS were specified and tested using Mplus with WLSMV estimation. ResultsMTMM model of PPTS offered the best representation of the data. The results suggest that the PPTS consists of four subscales (affective responsiveness, cognitive responsiveness, interpersonal manipulation, and egocentricity) while controlling for two method factors (knowledge/skills and attitudes/beliefs). Good composite reliability and differential predictive validity was observed. ConclusionThis brief measure of psychopathic traits uncontaminated with behavioral items can be used in the same way among participants with and without criminal history.