Testing a Four-Factor Model of Psychopathy and Its Association With Ethnicity, Gender, Intelligence, and Violence.

Abstract

Although a 2-factor model has advanced research on the psychopathy construct, a 3-factor model was recently developed that emphasized pathological personality and eliminated antisocial behavior. However, dropping antisocial behavior from the psychopathy construct may not be advantageous. Using a large sample of psychiatric patients from the MacArthur Risk Assessment Study (J. Monahan & H. J. Steadman, 1994), the authors used confirmatory factor analysis to test a 4-factor model of psychopathy, which included interpersonal, affective, and behavioral impulsivity dimensions and an antisocial behavior dimension. Model fit was good for this 4-factor model, even when ethnicity, gender, and intelligence variables were included in the model. Structural equation modeling was used to compare the 3- and 4-factor models in predicting proximal (violence) and distal (intelligence) correlates of psychopathy.

Prevalence and correlates of psychopathic traits in the household population of Great Britain

“…There has been lack of agreement over whether psychopathy is better described by a three-or four-factor model Cooke et al, 2004;Hare, 2003;Hare & Neumann, 2006;Neumann et al, 2005;Skeem, Mulvey, &Grisso, 2003;Vitacco et al, 2005). Our findings indicate that it would be inappropriate to dispense with the fourth (Antisocial) factor.…”

“…Across all studies, a specific pattern of association has been established. The Interpersonal factor was positively associated with verbal IQ and an intellectual measure reflecting creativity, practicality, and analytic thinking (Salekin, Neumann, Leistico, & Zalot, 2004;Vitacco et al, 2005). The Affective factor was negatively associated with verbal IQ (Salekin et al, 2004) as were the Lifestyle/antisocial components of psychopathy .…”

“…Although previously considered a higher-order construct underpinned by two correlated factors (Hare, 1991), subsequent confirmatory factor analysis has described a hierarchical three-factor model ) and more recently a four-factor model for both the PCL-R (Hare, 2003;Neumann, Hare, & Newman, 2007; Neumann, Vitacco, Hare & Wupperman, 2005) and the PCL: SV (Vitacco, Neumann & Jackson, 2005). This model (Table 1) permits finer descriptive analysis of individuals encountered in clinical practice and allows empirical study of subcomponents of psychopathy, including the possibility that these have different etiologies.…”

Personality disorder and offending behaviour: findings from the national survey of male prisoners in England and Wales

“…Narcissistic personality disorder is characterised by a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, lack of empathy, and is typically comorbid with antisocial personality disorder in offender samples (Coid, 2003). It has been argued that fraud offences require specific skills which may be associated with higher intelligence (Vitacco et al, 2005;Salekin et al, 2004). Unpublished research has indicated associations between higher IQ and narcissistic personality among offenders and in the general population is associated with life success in terms of career and finance (Ullrich et al, unpublished).…”

Initial development of an implicit and explicit approach to assess psychopathy

“…Sevecke, Pukrop, Kosson & Krischer, 2009), psychiatric (e.g. Vitacco, Neumann & Jackson, 2005), and forensic samples (e.g. Johansson, Andershed, Kerr & Lavander, 2002;Neumann, Hare & Johansson, 2013).…”