Examining the necessity for and utility of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory—Revised (PPI–R) validity scales.

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the need for and utility of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R) Deviant Responding (DR) and Virtuous Responding (VR) validity scales in identifying overreporting and underreporting, respectively. Since the PPI-R was published, there has not been an independent peer-reviewed examination of these scales. Participants were 384 undergraduate individuals asked to respond to the PPI-R under standard, underreporting, or overreporting instructions. A comparison group consisting of 200 forensic psychiatric patients was also used for the overreporting analyses. Effects of response bias on mean elevations on the PPI-R substantive scales were examined along with the effects on the PPI-R total, factor, and content scales' correlations with other relevant extratest measures of psychopathy. Mean elevations differed significantly, and correlations with extratest measures of psychopathy were significantly lower. Substantial decrement in psychometric validity of PPI-R scores was observed in the simulation conditions. In addition, the utility of the PPI-R validity scales in differentiating between groups was also determined. Both the VR and DR scales showed utility in differentiating between their respective dissimulation condition and the comparison groups, with acceptable rates of sensitivity and specificity.

Examining the Relationships Between the Triarchic Psychopathy Constructs and Behavioral Deviance in a Community Sample

“…Additionally, 39 participants were removed due to concerns about response style, measured by the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R) Deviant Responding (DR), Virtuous Responding (VR), and Inconsistent Responding-40 (IR-40) validity scales. Based on recommendations made by Anderson, Sellbom, Wygant, and Edens (2013), participants were removed from analyses if they scored higher than 25 on DR (n = 8) or higher than 38 on VR (n = 24). In addition, consistent with guidelines outlined in the PPI-R manual, participants were removed from analyses if they obtained a score higher than 45 on IR-40 (n = 7).…”

Self‐ and informant perceptions of psychopathic traits in relation to the triarchic model

“…Although validity scales designed to identify inconsistent responding are increasingly available for self‐report psychopathy measures (e.g., Kelley et al, ; Mowle et al, ; Penson et al, ), only the Psychopathic Personality Inventory‐Revised (PPI‐R; Lilienfeld & Widows, ) and Elemental Psychopathy Assessment (Lynam et al, ) originally contained indicators of positive impression management (e.g., consciously or unconsciously portraying oneself in an unrealistically favorable light; Paulhus, ). Moreover, few studies have examined the utility of these scales in detecting problematic response styles on self‐report psychopathy measures (Anderson, Sellbom, Wygant, & Edens, ; Kelley et al, ; Marcus, Church, O'Connell, & Lilienfeld, ; Nikolova, Hendry, Douglas, Edens, & Lilienfeld, ).…”

The inverse relation between psychopathy and faking good: not response bias, but true variance in psychopathic personality

“…In simulation studies, for instance, participants are randomly assigned to the response bias condition (e.g., instructed faking good) or the control condition. Such studies show that people are able to strategically lower the test outcome of self-report psychopathy measures (Edens et al, 2001), yet that faking good scales are able to detect such faking good (Anderson et al, 2013). Although the research base remains limited, it indicates that the validity of faking good measures depends on the context of the assessment.…”