Self-Report Measures of Psychopathy, Antisocial Personality, and Criminal Lifestyle

Abstract

This article reports results from five studies. Exploratory factor analysis was used to select indicators from the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles, Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy scales, and Personality Assessment Inventory—Antisocial Features Scale. The 10 indicators were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis, the results of which show that the two-dimensional model (proactive, reactive) achieves significantly better fit than a general one-factor model and a two-factor social learning model (criminal thinking, antisocial behavior) with 521 medium-security and 116 maximum-security inmates. The construct validity of the two-dimensional model is confirmed in a path analysis pairing (a) proactive scales with positive outcome expectancies for crime and (b) reactive scales with hostile attribution biases. Implications for a unified theory of aggression and criminality are discussed.