The Assessment of Psychopathic Personality Across Settings

Abstract

The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare in The Hare Psychopathy Checklist—Revised. Mutli-Health Systems, Toronto, ON, 2003) has for many years been the gold standard psychopathy assessment, shaping the understanding of psychopathic personality. While the PCL-R remains a leading measure of psychopathy, some concerns have been raised that the instrument has become the sole representation of psychopathy. Recently, a number of measures and conceptual theories have emerged to both expand upon and counterbalance the large body of literature related to the PCL-R, this has included, self-report tools, clinical instruments, and research protocols. The PPI-R (Lilienfeld and Widows in Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R) Professional Manual. Psychological Assessment Resources, Florida, 2005) is one of the modern assessment tools of psychopathy, focused on personality, rather than encompassing criminal behaviour in the assessment of psychopathy. Other emerging instruments with promising application in criminal and noncriminal settings include, the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP; Cooke et al., in International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 11, 242–252, 2012) and Elemental Psychopathy Assessment (Lynam et al., in Psychological Assessment, 2010), while in research, the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TRiPM; Patrick, 2009) is a developing assessment tool with potential for clinical use. In the corporate setting, the Business-Scan (B-Scan; Mathieu et al., 2013) and the Corporate Personality Inventory-Revised (Fritzon et al., 2016) have been specifically developed, with the B-Scan 360 solely measuring psychopathy, and CPI-R examining problematic personality traits, including psychopathic characteristics. The chapter will review the body of assessment instruments examining psychopathic personality, explore strengths and weakness, and discuss the measures most suitable for use in the workplace.