Although psychopathy usually is treated as a unitary construct, a seminal theory posits that there are 2 variants: Primary psychopathy is underpinned by an inherited affective deficit, whereas secondary psychopathy reflects an acquired affective disturbance. The authors investigated whether psychopathy phenotypically may be disaggregated into such types in a sample of 367 prison inmates convicted of violent crimes. Model-based cluster analysis of the Revised Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 2003) and trait anxiety scores in the psychopathic subgroup (n = 123; PCL-R > or = 29) revealed 2 clusters. Relative to primary psychopaths, secondary psychopaths had greater trait anxiety, fewer psychopathic traits, and comparable levels of antisocial behavior. Across validation variables, secondary psychopaths manifested more borderline personality features, poorer interpersonal functioning (e.g., irritability, withdrawal, poor assertiveness), and more symptoms of major mental disorder than primary psychopaths. When compared with the nonpsychopathic subgroup (n = 243), the 2 psychopathic variants manifested a theoretically coherent pattern of differences. Implications for etiological research and violence prevention are discussed.

The current study employed a large representative sample of violent male offenders within the Swedish prison system to examine the factor structure of the PCL-R and the latent variable relations between the PCL-R items and clinical ratings of low trait anxiety and trait fearlessness (LAF). Consistent with previous research, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed strong support for the four-factor model of psychopathy (Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle, and Antisocial). Also, a series of CFAs revealed that the LAF items could be placed on any of the PCL-R factors without any changes in model fit. Finally, structural equation modeling results indicated that a PCL-R superordinate factor was able to account for most of the variance of a separate LAF factor. Taken together, the results indicate that if low anxiety and fearlessness, as measured via clinical ratings, are part of the psychopathy construct they are comprehensively accounted for by extant PCL-R items.

The reliability and validity of the self-report questionnaire How I Think (HIT), designed to assess self-serving cognitive distortions related to antisocial behavior, was tested among Swedish offender and nonoffender adults and adolescents ( N = 364). The results showed self-serving distortions to be more common among offenders and to predict self-reported antisocial behavior when tested among adults. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed, in contrast to earlier findings, that the underlying structure of the HIT was best explained by a three-factor solution with one major cognitive factor, referred to as “criminal mind.” It was concluded that the HIT, after further examination of its structural and divergent validity, could be used as a measure of criminal thinking in adults as well as in adolescents.

Empirical studies using the PCL-R (Hare, 2003) have shown no intelligence differences between psychopaths and nonpsychopaths. However, Cleckley (1976) argued that psychopaths often show superior intelligence. The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that the correlation between intelligence and severity of criminal development is the opposite in psychopaths than in nonpsychopathic criminals using a sample of 370 men sentenced for violent (nonsexual) crimes. That pattern would provide a way of explaining the discrepancy between Cleckley's view and later empirical work. The results showed that for nonpsychopaths, higher total IQ and particularly verbal intelligence meant a later start in violent crime. For those diagnosed as psychopaths, however, this association was reversed.

Objective: This study is an attempt to compare two alternative models of psychopathy (PCL‐R); (i) the traditional 17‐item two‐factor model where the first factor describes a deceitful, manipulative and callous, unemotional dimension and the second factor describes the impulsive, irresponsible and antisocial behavioral lifestyle dimension; and (ii) a recently proposed 13‐item three‐factor model involving an interpersonal facet, an affective facet and a behavioral facet. Method:  Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of PCL‐R scores on a sample of 293 adult male violent offenders were conducted. Results:  The results of the exploratory factor analysis showed that the 13 items yielded three easily interpretable factors: an interpersonal factor, an affective factor and a behavioral/lifestyle factor. Through confirmatory factor analysis we showed that this model had a significantly closer fit to the data than the classical 17‐item, two‐factor model of the PCL‐R. Conclusion: The study supports the three‐faceted model of psychopathy.

The purpose of the present study was to test whether adult criminals with psychopathy diagnoses, more than those without, have histories of hyperactivity-impulsivity-attention problems (HIA) and conduct problems (CP). We compared psychopathic and nonpsychopathic violent criminal offenders on retrospective reports of conduct problems before the age of 15 and hyperactivity-impulsivity-attention problems before the age of 10. We used a sample of 186 adult men sentenced to prison in Sweden for 4 years or more for violent, nonsexual crimes. The mean age was 30.7( SD = 9.4). The results showed that a combination of childhood HIA problems and CP was typical for adult psychopathic offenders. They were four times more likely than chance to have had a combination of HIA problems and CP during childhood and only one-fifth as likely than chance to have had neither problem. Nonpsychopathic offenders, on the other hand, were five times more likely than chance to have had neither problem and only one-quarter as likely than chance to have had both problems.

An influential neurobiological model of personality is the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory, which postulates how basic motivational systems (behavioral activation system [BAS], behavioral inhibition system [BIS]) can help account for the development and expression of individual differences in personality. Earlier research has documented a link between psychopathic personality and the BIS/BAS scale (Carver & White, 1994), which was developed to measure the behavioral inhibition and activation systems. However, no studies have examined how latent BIS/BAS factors and the 4 empirically derived Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) psychopathy factors (Hare & Neumann, 2008) are associated across different cultures. In the current study, structural equation modeling was used to determine how the 4 PCL-R factors were able to predict BIS/BAS factors using 2 large independent samples of male offenders (North American N = 908; Swedish N = 242). The results were in line with theory and revealed a negative relationship between the PCL-R Affective factor and the BIS factor as well as positive relationships between the PCL-R Antisocial and Lifestyle factors with the BAS factor. Overall, the results of the current study provide evidence of cross-cultural generalizability for the associations between the PCL-R factors and the BIS-BAS factors. Taken together, the PCL-R psychopathy factors were able to account for meaningful variance in the BIS-BAS factors and further support a dimensional approach to understanding the psychopathy construct across cultures.

[395][396][397][398][399][400][401][402][403][404][405][406][407][408][409], the headings "Primary (n ϭ 74)" and "Secondary (n ϭ 49)" should be reversed in Table 1 on p. 401. In addition, the means for the Psychic Anxiety scale of the Karolinska Scales of Personality should be 0.52 (rather than Ϫ0.52) and Ϫ0.34 (rather than 0.34).