Psychopathy Checklist-Revised Facet Research Articles

Psychopathy and the combination of psychopathy and sexual deviance as predictors of sexual recidivism: Meta-analytic findings using the Psychopathy Checklist—Revised.

Clinicians routinely administer Hare's (2003) Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) to sex offenders and report PCL-R scores as meaningful predictors of recidivism risk. Although a 2005 meta-analysis reported a small (d=0.29) association between PCL-R scores and sexual recidivism (Hanson & Morton-Bourgon, 2005), no meta-analysis has examined effects for PCL-R factors and facets, the widely cited combination of high PCL-R and high sexual deviance scores, or potential moderators of the PCL-R/recidivism relation. We conducted a meta-analysis of effects from all available studies examining the relation between PCL-R scores and sexual recidivism (k=20, N=5,239). The effect for PCL-R Total scores predicting sexual recidivism was d=0.40, which falls beyond the upper end of the 2005 confidence interval [.20, .38]. Effects were stronger for Factor 2 (d=0.44) and Facet 4 (d=0.40) scores than other factor or facet scores (ds=0.01 to 0.17). Effects tended to be stronger for scores calculated for research (d=0.44) compared to those calculated for clinical use (d=0.28). Offenders who scored high on both the PCL-R and a measure of sexual deviance were more likely to reoffend sexually than other offenders (odds ratio=2.80 to 3.21, k=6). Results indicate that PCL-R scores, particularly combined with a measure of sexual deviance, are potentially relevant to sex offender risk. But results also underscore several practical challenges to implementing these findings in routine clinical practice.

On Individual Differences in Person Perception: Raters’ Personality Traits Relate to Their Psychopathy Checklist-Revised Scoring Tendencies

This study investigated raters' personality traits in relation to scores they assigned to offenders using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). A total of 22 participants, including graduate students and faculty members in clinical psychology programs, completed a PCL-R training session, independently scored four criminal offenders using the PCL-R, and completed a comprehensive measure of their own personality traits. A priori hypotheses specified that raters' personality traits, and their similarity to psychopathy characteristics, would relate to raters' PCL-R scoring tendencies. As hypothesized, some raters assigned consistently higher scores on the PCL-R than others, especially on PCL-R Facets 1 and 2. Also as hypothesized, raters' scoring tendencies related to their own personality traits (e.g., higher rater Agreeableness was associated with lower PCL-R Interpersonal facet scoring). Overall, findings underscore the need for future research to examine the role of evaluator characteristics on evaluation results and the need for clinical training to address evaluators' personality influences on their ostensibly objective evaluations.

Validity of factors of the Psychopathy Checklist--Revised in female prisoners: discriminant relations with antisocial behavior, substance abuse, and personality.

The validity of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) has been examined extensively in men, but its validity for women remains understudied. Specifically, the correlates of the general construct of psychopathy and its components as assessed by PCL-R total, factor, and facet scores have yet to be examined in depth. Based on previous research conducted with male offenders, a large female inmate sample was used to examine the patterns of relations between total, factor, and facet scores on the PCL-R and various criterion variables. These variables include ratings of psychopathy based on Cleckley's criteria, symptoms of antisocial personality disorder, and measures of substance use and abuse, criminal behavior, institutional misconduct, interpersonal aggression, normal range personality, intellectual functioning, and social background variables. Results were highly consistent with past findings in male samples and provide further evidence for the construct validity of the PCL-R two-factor and four-facet models across genders.

The Latent Structure of Psychopathy

A taxometric analysis of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) is conducted on a group of 409 male maximum-, medium-, and minimum-security federal prison inmates using the four PCL-R facet scores (interpersonal, affective, impulsive lifestyle, and antisocial behavior) as indicators. Results obtained from three quasi-independent taxometric procedures-mean above minus below a cut, maximum eigenvalue, and latent mode factor analysis-reveal consistent support for a dimensional interpretation of the psychopathy concept in a moderately heterogeneous sample of participants. On the basis of these results, it is concluded that psychopathy falls along a continuum and that high and low scores on the PCL-R reflect quantitative differences in degree rather than qualitative differences in kind.