The Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) has shown promising construct validity as a measure of psychopathy. Because of its relative efficiency, a short-form version of the PPI (PPI-SF) was developed and has proven useful in many psychopathy studies. The validity of the PPI-SF, however, has not been thoroughly examined, and no studies have…

Despite substantial evidence for the fit of the 3- and 4-factor models of Psychopathy Checklist-based ratings of psychopathy in adult males and adolescents, evidence is less consistent in adolescent females. However, prior studies used samples much smaller than recommended for examining model fit. To address this issue, we conducted a confirmatory…

Given substantial interest in the traits conceived of as part of the "Dark Triad"--psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism--assessment of these traits is of great importance. The Dirty Dozen (DD; Jonason & Webster, 2010) is a brief measure of the Dark Triad constructs that uses 4 items to assess each of these constructs. In the present…

Item response theory (IRT) methods were applied to items from the 80-item Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS; G. D. Walters, 1995) to determine how well they measure the latent trait of criminal thinking in a group of 2,872 male medium security prison inmates. Preliminary analyses revealed that the 64 PICTS thinking style…

The present study examines the predictive and incremental validity of Violence Risk Appraisal Guide scores in a sample of 328 male and 145 female jail inmates held on felony charges. Significant gender differences were observed in VRAG item and total score means, as well as in correlations between the VRAG and concurrent measures of aggression.…

The "Delinquency Reduction Outcome Profile" ("DROP") is a novel situational-judgment test (SJT) designed to measure social decision making in delinquent youth. The DROP includes both a typical SJT scoring method, which captures the deviation of an individual response from an "ideal" expert-based response pattern, as well as a novel…

The social climate of correctional (forensic) settings is likely to have a significant impact on the outcome of treatment and the overall functioning of these units. The Essen Climate Evaluation Schema (EssenCES) provides an objective way of measuring social climate that overcomes the content, length, and psychometric limitations of other…

Interpersonal characteristics are core features of the psychopathy construct which have a unique pattern of correlations with a variety of external correlates. To improve the assessment of interpersonal traits, the current study evaluated the internal structure of the Interpersonal Measure of Psychopathy (IM-P) through exploratory and confirmatory…

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI; S. O. Lilienfeld, 1990; S. O. Lilienfeld & B. P. Andrews, 1996) with a community sample has suggested that the PPI subscales may comprise 2 higher order factors (S. D. Benning, C. J. Patrick, B. M. Hicks, D. M. Blonigen, & R. F. Krueger, 2003). However,…

The attentional blink (AB) is a robust phenomenon that has been consistently reported in the cognitive literature. The AB is found when two target images (T1, T2) are presented within 500 ms of each other and errors are induced on the perceptual report of T2. The AB may increase when T1 has some salience to the viewer. This study examined the…

Two studies are reported on the underlying dimensions of the psychopathy construct in adolescents as measured by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Youth Version (PCL: YV; Forth, Kosson, & Hare, 2003). In Study 1, the PCL: YV item ratings for 505 male adolescents incarcerated in 5 different settings in North America were used to test the fit of 3…

This study examined the effects of defensive responding on the prediction of institutional misconduct among male inmates (N = 349) who completed the Personality Assessment Inventory (L. C. Morey, 1991). Hierarchical logistic regression analyses demonstrated significant main effects for the Antisocial Features (ANT) scale as well as main effects…

The correspondence between the Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV; S. D. Hart, D. N. Cox, & R. D. Hare, 1995) and the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991, 2003) was examined in forensic (N = 175) and correctional (N = 188) samples. Intermeasure correlations for Total scores (0.95 forensic, 0.94…

The utility of the psychopathy construct in predicting laboratory deficits, criminal behavior, response to intervention, and recidivism has been well documented in European American populations. However, less is known about the manifestation and correlates of psychopathy in Latino and African American populations. The present study examined the…