NSSI thoughts and urges are commonly experienced and deserve further attention.

Self-report psychopathy scales are increasingly used in research and practice despite criticisms that they may be susceptible to response distortion and bias. We assessed the utility of including the Virtuous Responding (VR) and Deviant Responding (DR) validity scales from the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R) for identifying underreporting and overreporting, respectively, on both the full and short-form versions of the Self-Report Psychopathy scale (SRP 4 and SRP-SF) in a pre/post experimental design. Using a sample of 384 male community members and a clinical comparison group of 99 males from a forensic outpatient program, we demonstrated that SRP scores were more susceptible to overreporting than underreporting, and that overreporting significantly and negatively affected convergent validity. Finally, baseline psychopathy scores were unrelated to successful response distortion (i.e., changing scores in correct direction while remaining undetected by the validity scales). It is recommended that assessments using self-report psychopathy scales consider including validity indices to detect response distortion. In doing so, it will be important to consider that general impression management may be conceptually distinct from specific forms of response distortion, such as the intentional amplification or minimization of psychopathic traits.

Psychopathic traits are typically associated with antisocial and offending outcomes. In contrast, resilience (adaptive functioning despite risks) has been found helpful for pursuing positive outcomes (e.g., desistance). To determine the relationship between psychopathy, resilience, and antisocial or offending outcomes, two studies were conducted using two diverse samples: youngadult university students (N = 488) and youth offenders (N = 1,354). In the student young-adult sample, resilience mediated the relationship between psychopathy and antisocial behaviour. In the criminal youth sample, psychopathy had a stable relationship (i.e., consistent predictive validity) with offending over time; resilience was dynamic, its effect deteriorating over longer periods. Agency-related (internal) resilience was found to be more prevalent in females than males and significantly predicted desistance. This runs counter to relational-cultural theory, given that Social-related (external) resilience did not predict desistance in females. Future research should continue to examine gendered effects of internal and external resilience traits.

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Self-report psychopathy scales are increasingly used in research and practice despite criticisms that they may be susceptible to response distortion and bias. We assessed the utility of including the Virtuous Responding (VR) and Deviant Responding (DR) validity scales from the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R) for identifying underreporting and overreporting, respectively, on both the full and short-form versions of the Self-Report Psychopathy scale (SRP 4 and SRP-SF) in a pre/post experimental design. Using a sample of 384 male community members and a clinical comparison group of 99 males from a forensic outpatient program, we demonstrated that SRP scores were more susceptible to overreporting than underreporting, and that overreporting significantly and negatively affected convergent validity. Finally, baseline psychopathy scores were unrelated to successful response distortion (i.e., changing scores in correct direction while remaining undetected by the validity scales). It is recommended that assessments using self-report psychopathy scales consider including validity indices to detect response distortion. In doing so, it will be important to consider that general impression management may be conceptually distinct from specific forms of response distortion, such as the intentional amplification or minimization of psychopathic traits.