Psychopathy and Offending Research Paper

This sample Psychopathy and Offending Research Paper is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need help writing your assignment, please use our research paper writing service and buy a paper on any topic at affordable price. Also check our tips on how to write a research paper, see the lists of criminal justice research paper topics, and browse research paper examples.

Psychopathic personality disorder (PPD) is a form of personality disorder; it influences how an individual typically thinks, feels, and behaves. Those who suffer from this disorder have difficulty forming and maintaining attached relationships with others, they are often suspicious and intolerant, their emotional experiences are impaired, their view of their self is distorted, being grandiose and self-centered, and their behavior is frequently reckless and aggressive.

Historically, PPD has been linked to offending in both preclinical and early clinical writing. In recent years research on PPD has been dominated by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), an instrument developed in criminal populations and used to make a lifetime diagnosis of the disorder. Meta-analytic studies using the PCL-R, and its derivatives, suggest a small to moderate relation between the PCL-R and future reoffending. Care must be taken in the interpretation of these results because PCL-R ratings focus, both explicitly and implicitly, on the past criminal behavior of the person being assessed.

The development of new measures of psychopathy suggests that the construct of psychopathy, as distinct from the PCL-R measure, may have predictive utility. In practical contexts, for example, risk management, a clear formulation of an individual’s profile of PPD symptoms, and its relevance for future violence and risk management, is likely to have utility. Future research should focus on the relationships among specific facets of PPD and specific facets of offending behavior.

Psychopathic Personality Disorder And Offending

Personality disorders are forms of mental disorder that are chronic in nature, starting in adolescence or early adulthood; they affect how an individual thinks, feels, and behaves, the consequences being chronic disturbance in the individuals relations with self, others, and their environment. This chronic disturbance leads, in turn, to subjective distress and/or a failure to properly fulfil social roles and obligations (American Psychiatric Association 2000). In psychology traits are inferred, “latent,” constructs that are hypothesized to be causal entities that underpin behavioral dispositions. Traits are inherently explanatory; they can predict a range of consequential outcomes. The symptoms of personality disorders are regarded as being extreme personality traits that lead to disorder and dysfunction.

Psychopathic personality disorder (PPD) is a specific form of personality disorder that is characterized by dysfunction in six domains of functioning. In terms of the interpersonal features, those who suffer from PPD are generally pathologically dominant in their relationships with others; they are frequently antagonistic, deceitful, and manipulative. They have difficulty forming – and maintaining – attachments to family, friends, and intimate partners; typically, they are detached, uncommitted, and unempathic. Cognitively they are frequently suspicious, intolerant, and inflexible; their emotional function is impaired because they lack appropriate anxiety, emotional depth, and empathy. Those suffering from PPD suffer a distorted view of self – an unusual form of psychological disturbance; in particular, they may display a sense of being invulnerable, unique, or entitled; they are self-centered and engage in self-justification. Behaviorally, they are unreliable, reckless, and aggressive (Cooke et al. 2012).

The concept of psychopathy, and its link to offending, has been the subject of debate and controversy: there are significant conceptual and empirical challenges in understanding the link. In this research paper the association between PPD and offending will be considered from its historical roots to recent empirical research. Some of the challenges confronting the clear explicating of both the strength and quality of the association between PPD and offending will be outlined; the practical implications that this association has for the effective risk management of certain offenders will be considered.

Psychopathic Personality Disorder Crime And Antisocial Behavior

Quick reflection will reveal that it would not be surprising if the personality features enshrined in the definition of PPD alluded to above led to criminal behavior; indeed, PPD is frequently associated with diverse types of criminal behavior. Skeem et al. (2011) illustrated this diversity: the corporate psychopath who swindles investors with elaborate Ponzi schemes, the con artist who dupes others with ease and consummate skill, and even the serial killer.

Current empirical evidence suggests that those who suffer from PPD have distinctive criminal careers, starting early in life and desisting much later than other offenders – if at all – and they engage in a diverse range of types of criminal activity (Hart and Hare 1997). Their criminal conduct is often motivated by factors that differ from those which drive other offenders (e.g., the need to dominate and control; instrumental rather than expressive needs); also, the behavioral topography of their criminal acts (e.g., victim type and modus operandi) varies from those who do not suffer from this disorder. For example, those who suffer from PPD are more likely to have male strangers among their victims as compared with those who do not suffer from PPD.

General theories of crime, in terms of psychosocial and cultural factors, may have less traction in terms of explanation for the offending of this group. While PPD is regarded as a mental disorder, within the framework of Anglo-American legal theory, those with PPD are legally sane; they retain both the cognitive ability to appreciate that criminal acts are morally reprehensible and sufficient volitional control to inhibit their antisocial and criminal acts – should they choose to do so (Hart and Hare 1997).

PPD has long been associated with criminal behavior whether in ancient sources including the Bible, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and the Icelandic Sagas or in the early clinical descriptions of mental disorder. In the early clinical descriptions, three strands linking personality pathology and offending can be discerned. Clinical writers in the early part of the nineteenth century linked repeated acts of violence to behavioral dyscontrol (e.g., recklessness and impulsivity) in patients who suffered neither psychotic symptoms nor impaired intellectual functioning but rather suffered from inchoate forms of personality pathology (e.g., Pinel, Partridge, Prichard). Early twentieth century nosologists emphasized a second strand, an interpersonal aspect, characterized by persuasiveness and charm, selfconfidence, and social assertiveness which was linked to crimes including swindling and fraud (e.g., Cleckley, Kraepelin, Schneider). A third strand that can be discerned in early clinical writings is the emotionally cold, predatory exploitativeness linked to instrumental violence (e.g., Schneider, Pinel, Rush). Thus clinicians identified three distinct aspects of PPD – interpersonal, affective, and behavioral – each of which might be linked to offending.

Moving from clinical conceptualizations to empirical studies, there is little doubt that the dominant approach to measurement of PPD over the last three decades has been the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare 2003). The measure was developed in the 1970s and was based explicitly on Cleckley’s clinical description of psychopathy. Although designed to measure Cleckley’s concept of psychopathy, the PCL-R may be regarded as imperfect as it is overly saturated with measures of criminal acts and impulsivity and omits key Clecklian features such as absence of nervousness (Skeem and Cooke 2010). Given its preeminence in the literature, the PCL-R will be considered in some detail.

The Psychopathy Checklist And Offending

The PCL-R is a 20-item scale that is completed by a trained clinician who has reviewed the subject’s institutional and criminal records and has carried out a thorough interview concerning the person’s history and personality features. The information about the subject is compared to operational definitions in the PCL-R manual, and the clinician decides whether there is evidence that the subject matches these operational definitions. Broadly speaking, the PCL-R items can be grouped into a number of conceptual groups: (1) Interpersonal (e.g., Grandiose Sense of Self-Worth, Glibness/Superficial Charm, Pathological Lying), (2) Affective (e.g., Shallow Affect, Callous/Lack of Empathy, Lack of Remorse or Guilt), and (3) Behavioral (e.g., Impulsivity, Irresponsibility, Need for Stimulation/Proneness to Boredom). These three aspects, which reflect the clinical condition, form the core of the disorder (Cooke and Michie 2001; Cooke et al. 2007). However, in addition, the PCL-R contains aspects that have been termed “Antisocial” (e.g., Criminal Versatility, Revocation of Conditional Release, Juvenile Delinquency); it also includes items pertaining to having many relationships and sexually promiscuity.

There can be little doubt that over the last three decades, the PCL-R has established itself both in the history of personality disorder research and in the armamentarium of applied and research psychologists. It is widely used. Hare (2003) contended that “Perhaps the PCL-R saves lives … because it helps to keep very dangerous people in prison” (p. 16, emphasis in original). Others have suggested that the application of the PCL-R can have profound prejudicial effects when it is used in certain court proceedings (Bersoff 2002).

What might the PCL-R tell us about the link between psychopathy and offending?

A common paradigm is to assess prisoners using the PCL-R and then, following their release from prison, prospectively assess their rate of reoffending. Meta-analytic studies suggest a low to moderate association between PCL-R scores and future offending including general recidivism, violent recidivism, and sexual reoffending (e.g., Leistico et al. 2008). Yang et al. (2010), looking specifically at violent offending, found that the PCL-R scores were weakly or moderately associated with future offending, but critically, the interpersonal and affective features of the disorder – the core of the disorder – failed to contribute to the prediction, the observed association being due to impulsivity and history of criminal activity. Indeed, empirical measures that quantify the chronicity of criminal behavior or criminal lifestyle appear to perform as well as the PCL-R in the prediction of both general and violent recidivism (Skeem and Cooke 2010).

While the empirical fact of an association between PCL-R scores and risk of reoffending is clear, the meaning of that association is less clear. To understand the meaning it is necessary to consider, in some more detail, what the PCL-R may actually measure.

Psychopathy And Criminal Behavior: Measurement Issues

The latent structure of the PCL-R has been the focus of some debate regarding the relationship between psychopathy and crime and offending (Cooke et al. 2007; Hare 2003; Skeem and Cooke 2010). Cooke and Michie (2001) demonstrated that PCL-R data, and other measures of the psychopathy construct, could be best represented by a three-factor model in which the superordinate construct of psychopathy was underpinned by three distinct latent traits described as: (1) Arrogant and Deceitful Interpersonal Style, (2) Deficient Affective Experience, and (3) Irresponsible Behavioral Style. Hare (2003) proposed a number of “four-factor” models in which he added what he termed an “Antisocial facet” to the Cooke and Michie three-factor model. Although described as antisocial the facet is operationalized, to a considerable degree, by consideration of criminal behavior including convictions (see above).

There are empirical and theoretical reasons why the four-facet model is, in my view, unsustainable: these issues have been considered in detail elsewhere (Cooke et al. 2007; Skeem and Cooke 2010). In brief, the preferred model of Hare (2003 et seq.) appears to be one in which the Cooke and Michie three factors are shown to be correlated with the “Antisocial facet” (Cooke et al. 2007, figure 5). In essence this correlated model merely says that criminal or antisocial behavior is correlated with the three primary traits of PPD, a perhaps unsurprising finding (Cooke et al. 2007). It does not indicate that the four facets are underpinned by a common cause, i.e., psychopathy (see Smith et al. 2003 for a detailed discussion of the important differences between compound traits and multifaceted traits). Attempts to fit an appropriate model to test the assumption that criminal and antisocial behavior are underpinned by a common cause (Cooke et al. 2007, figure 3) have been generally unsuccessful.

Why might this matter? The majority of empirical research concerning the relationship between psychopathy and offending has been carried out using the PCL-R, or its derivatives, to operationalize the construct of PPD. Our understanding about the association between psychopathy and offending – or lack of understanding – is critically linked to the qualities of the PCL-R. Putting to one side the effect of mono-method bias on our understanding of the association, there are other method and conceptual factors that require consideration.

Psychopathy And Offending: Avoiding The Tautology

Clearly, if we wish to properly understand the relationship between PPD and offending, we must begin by measuring the two constructs separately. Blackburn (2007) explained the error of mixing aspects of personality pathology with aspects of criminal and antisocial behavior within one measure. Blackburn noted that such a practice “confounds different conceptual domains because personality deviation and social deviance belong in different universes of discourse. Personality deviation is defined within the framework of interpersonal norms, whereas social deviance represents departures from legal or moral rules. To define the former in terms of the latter precludes any understanding of the relationship” [between the two] (Blackburn 2007, p. 145, citations omitted).

It is perhaps not surprising that the measurement of psychopathy in the PCL-R is confounded with the measurement of criminal behavior. The PCL-R was developed as a research tool for use in correctional populations (Hare 2003): certain items are explicitly founded upon criminal acts (e.g., Criminal Versatility, Juvenile Delinquency, and Revocation of Conditional Release) while others draw heavily upon offenders’ discussion of their crimes and victims (e.g., Callous/Lack of Empathy, Parasitic Lifestyle, Failure to Accept Responsibility for Own Actions).

Failure to disaggregate the measurement of the two constructs of interest – PPD and offending – will inevitably lead to tautological thinking, a problem perhaps most eloquently expressed by Ellard (1988); thus, “Why has this man done these terrible things? Because he is a psychopath. And how do you know that he is a psychopath? Because he has done these terrible things” (p. 387).

This is not merely of theoretical importance. Walters et al. (2008) considered whether the interpersonal, affective, and behavioral facets of the PCL-R actually added to the predictive power of the “Antisocial” facet. They found that the first three facets added little incremental predictive power over and above the “Antisocial” facet. As Walters et al. (2008) observed, “If Cooke and his associates are correct in their contention that criminality is not a key component of the psychopathy picture, then the present results have portentous implications for the psychopathy construct and offer serious challenge to Hare’s (1998) assertion that psychopathy is the ‘single most important clinical construct in the criminal justice system’ (p. 99)” (p. 403).

Given the above, should we abandon consideration of the construct of psychopathy in relation to offending or not? It can be argued that such a course would be premature given the historical, theoretical, and empirical links between PPD and offending. Blackburn’s (2007) prescription of separating the measurement of personality deviance from the measurement of criminal and antisocial behavior is a first step; clearer theorizing about the risk processes entailed by the disorder is a second step. Both these steps will be considered now.

A New Model Of Psychopathy

A new model of psychopath has recently been developed – the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP; Cooke et al. 2012). The CAPP model is an attempt to explicate the construct of psychopathy, to describe the conceptual domain of interest. The CAPP model is distinct from measures of psychopathy but informs the development of measures designed to map the conceptual domain. Perhaps, the two signal features of the model are first, it entails symptoms defined in terms of personality pathology – stylistic variations among people – and excludes symptoms that are departures from cultural or moral standards, such as specific criminal or antisocial behaviors. Second, it is dynamic; in keeping with contemporary psychological thinking, traits are not viewed as fixed but rather they are dynamic constructs that can account for both stability and change in a range of behaviors including criminal activity, in particular, the age-crime curve (Blonigen 2010).

The CAPP model was developed by reviewing the extensive literature on the construct of PPD and by consulting subject matter experts in a systematic manner. Information about putative symptoms was subjected to a lexical analysis that led to the identification of 33 symptoms of the disorder. Symptoms are defined in atomistic terms, rather than high-level, complex, or blended terms. On rational grounds these symptoms were allocated to six conceptual domains that are consistent with past research on basic dimensions of personality pathology, namely, Attachment (e.g., detached, unempathic, uncaring), Behavioral (lacks perseverance, restless, disruptive), Cognitive (suspicious, lacks concentration, lacks planfulness), Dominance (domineering, deceitful, manipulative), Emotional (lacks remorse, lacks anxiety, lacks emotional depth), and Self (self-centered, sense of uniqueness, self-aggrandising). These domains where thought to possess heuristic value and have recently been supported by empirical results (Cooke et al. 2012).

Research on the CAPP-IRS (CAPPInstitutional Rating Scale) is still at the preliminary stage; however, results so far suggest grounds for cautious optimism. Specifically, in terms of predictive validity in relation to recidivism, Pedersen et al. (2010) showed that the CAPPIRS was comparable to the PCL:SV (a short form of the PCL-R), the predictive validity being moderate. Thus, a method which operationalizes the PPD construct without reference to a history of offending performed as well as the PCL:SV. In a post-dictive study, the capacity of the six CAPP domain scores and three primary PCL-R facets scores to predict Facet 4 of the PCL-R, an index of antisocial and criminal behavior, was evaluated. Stepwise regression analyses demonstrated that the CAPP-IRS Behavioral domain score had superior predictive power over any of the three primary PCL-R facet scores; this is particularly interesting given that the CAPP ratings were based on the previous 6 months while the PCL-R ratings were based on lifetime ratings (Cooke et al. 2012).

These results echo results from other measures of psychopathy which do not depend, to any degree, on ratings of criminal behavior, e.g., The Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI-R; Lilienfeld et al. 2005). Skeem et al. (2011) noted that the PPI-R has predictive validity in relation to institutional misconduct, violence, and general offending in a range of populations including adults and young offenders, and community and forensic psychiatric residents. These findings are suggestive that even when construct-criterion contamination is removed, it is still possible to demonstrate a link between PPD and offending.

From Groups To Individuals

The fundamental driver for the renaissance of interest in the concept of PPD over the last few decades has been concern about identifying those who may be of risk of committing violence in the future. The irresistible rise of risk assessment has promoted interest in PPD not least because measures such as the PCL-R, and its derivatives, have been shown to be relatively strong risk factors – compared with other risk factors – for future violence. Two broad approaches to risk assessment can be discerned; the actuarial, an approach in which scores on instruments like the PCL-R are used to make a numerical prediction about the likelihood of reoffending, and Structured Professional Judgement (SPJ) approaches where comprehensive knowledge of the individual, and their circumstances, are used to plan a risk management plan designed to obviate and perceived risk. The actuarial approach, although popular, is fundamentally misleading. One foundation problem is the assumption that knowledge about an individual’s PCL-R score can provide meaningful predictions about that individual’s future offending. Cooke and Michie (2010) demonstrated that the prediction interval (i.e., confidence interval associated with a point prediction) associated with predictions of future offending were enormous – typically between 1 % and 99 % – indicating that such predictions have no value when making decisions about individual cases.

From Statistical Thinking To Psychological Thinking

Should we then dismiss and ignore information about PPD, or might such information have some heuristic or clinical value or relevance. A risk factor can be said to have clinical relevance if it either contributes to the understanding of why an individual might go on to offend violently, or because it contributes to our understanding of why the individual might be difficult to engage in risk management through treatment, monitoring, supervision and victim safety planning.

One of the reasons that the PCL-R has been associated with future violence – at the aggregate level – is because it taps into many symptoms (and sequelae) of psychopathy that either increase risk of violence or interfere with effective risk management (Cooke 2010). PCL-R scores are silent on cause; their relevance to risk processes in the individual case has to be explicated. In order to understand future risk, the assessor must disaggregate these risk processes and identify those that apply to the particular individual that they are managing. To illustrate, the nature of the risk – and the risk management plan – of an individual who poses a violence risk because he is pathologically dominant possesses a sense of entitlement and construes others as having malevolent intent would be different to the management strategy for someone who is callous, reckless, and impulsive. Each individuals might be risky because of their particular pattern of psychopathic traits; however, the psychological processes underpinning their risk – and thereby the interventions required – could be quite different.

Psychopathy has been described as a “minitheory” of violence (Hart 1998); indeed, distinct aspects of psychopathy may be conceptualized as drivers, disinhibitors, or destabilizers that act to increase the likelihood of violence (Cooke 2010). The status needs of psychopathic individuals may drive violence because these needs frequently lead to suspiciousness and a tendency to construe maleficent motives underpinning the behavior of others. Those with psychopathic personality disorder are often overly sensitive to challenges to their status. Aggression is a common response to the fear of losing face. Specific forms of violence, e.g., sadism, may be founded on the desire to control, demean, and humiliate others which is a consequence of status needs and other forms of self-pathology, including possessing a sense of entitlement.

The emotional deficits that characterize PPD including lack of empathy, guilt, and fear have relevance for criminal behavior, in general, and violent behavior, in particular. The lack of emotional depth, remorse, or empathy all may be considered as disinhibitors with the absence of these affective responses resulting in the failure to inhibit antisocial cognitions and actions. If you lack anxiety ahead of a violent act, or you lack remorse for a violent act that you have committed, there is neither inhibition nor cost associated with that act. The behavioral features of the disorder including disruptiveness, recklessness, unreliability, and absence of perseverance, together with attachment deficits including being uncaring and uncommitted, can act as destabilizers. These features cause the breakdown in reliable social structures, supports, and routines, and this creates the chaotic circumstances in which violent behavior is more likely (Cooke 2010).

In the applied world, the clinician has to take a fundamentally nomothetic approach to the understanding of an individual offender and their particular configuration of symptoms of PPD. As Millon noted recently, “It is only the unique way in which the personality construct is seen in real patients that is ultimately of clinical value.” (Millon 2011; p. 296). An individualized formulation has to be developed in which an understanding of the nature and etiology of an individual’s difficulties is developed in a precise and systematic manner, communicated to the client, and others, in the form of a narrative written in natural language. Models such as the CAPP model of PPD can be applied to provide a precise and systematic description of how the symptoms of PPD might influence an individual’s likelihood of engaging in future offending, but also, his manageability. The clinician’s role is to use this, and other, information in order to establish a risk management plan that entails strategies of treatment, supervision, monitoring, and victim safety planning designed to obviate future violence risk and which takes into account the particular pattern of PPD traits displayed by the client.

Looking To The Future

While historically, PPD and offending have been linked; contemporary research leaves many key questions unanswered, are current empirical findings the result of construct-criterion contamination, i.e., tautological thinking, and are particular aspects or facet of PPD of particular relevance to future offending, in general, or violent offending, in particular; what moderating influence do other key variables, e.g., gender, age, and psychiatric status, have on the putative link between PPD and offending?

In order to answer these – and other – questions, it is necessary to improve our measurement of both PPD and of offending; most studies have depended on the PCL-R and on simple recidivism, the latter criterion being an impoverished account of a complex phenomenon. Future research should endeavor to explore the specificity of relationships between aspects of PPD and aspects of offending. This paradigm is common in other areas of quasi-experimental research. The specific role of cigarette smoking in the etiology of lung cancer only became apparent when the relationship between all types of smoking and all disease was refined. Similarly, it could be conjectured that certain aspects of PPD might be linked with certain types of violence, e.g., instrumental versus reactive.

Conclusions

PPD and offending have long been associated. The empirical evidence goes some way to support a link but methodological problems cloud the true nature of the relationship. From a theoretical perspective new approaches to measurement are required to clarify key issues. From a practical perspective detailed studies, including systematic case studies, are required to clarify the why question: why do particular symptoms, or configurations of symptoms, of PPD increase the likelihood of offending?

Bibliography:

American Psychiatric Association (2000) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: text revision. American Psychiatric Association, Washington, DC
Bersoff D (2002) Some contrarian concerns about law, psychology and public policy. Law Hum Behav 26(5):565–574
Blackburn R (2007) Personality disorder and antisocial deviance: comments on the debate on the structure of the psychopathy checklist-revised. J Personal Disord 21(2):142–159
Blonigen DM (2010) Explaining the relationship between age and crime: contributions from the developmental literature on personality. Clin Psychol Rev 30:89–100
Cooke DJ (2010) Personality disorder and violence: understand violence risk and risk processes. J Personal Disord 24(5):539–550
Cooke DJ, Michie C (2001) Refining the construct of psychopathy: towards a hierarchical model. Psychol Assess 13:171–188
Cooke DJ, Michie C (2010) Limitations of diagnostic precision and predictive utility in the individual case: a challenge for forensic practice. Law Hum Behav 34:258–274
Cooke DJ, Forth A, Hare RD (1998) Psychopathy: theory, research and implications for society. Kluwer, Dordrecht
Cooke DJ, Michie C, Skeem JL (2007) Understanding the structure of the psychopathy checklist revised: an exploration of methodological confusion. Br J Psychiatry 190(Suppl 49):39–50
Cooke DJ, Hart SD, Logan C, Michie C (2012) Explicating the construct of psychopathy: the development of the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP) model. Paper Under Review
Ellard J (1988) The history and present status of moral insanity. Aust N Z J Psychiatry 22(4):383–389
Hare RD (2003) Manual for the revised psychopathy checklist, 2nd edn. Multi-Health Systems, Toronto
Hart SD (1998) The role of psychopathy in assessing risk for violence: conceptual and methodological issues. Leg Criminol Psychol 3(121):137
Hart SD, Hare RD (1997) Psychopathy: assessment and association with criminal conduct. In: Stoff DM, Maser J, Brieling J (eds) Handbook of antisocial behaviour. Wiley, New York
Leistico AR, Salekin RT, DeCoster J, Rogers R (2008) A large-scale meta-analysis relating the Hare measures of psychopathy to antisocial conduct. Law Hum Behav 32:28–45
Lilienfeld SO, Widows MR, Staff P (2005) Psychopathic personality inventory TM-revised. Soc Influ (SOI) 61(65):97
Millon T (2011) Classifying personality disorders: an evolution-based alternative to an evidence-based approach. J Personal Disord 25(3):279–304
Patrick CJ (2006) Handbook of psychopathy. The Guilford Press, New York
Pedersen L, Kunz C, Rasmussen K, Elsass P (2010) Psychopathy as a risk factor for violent recidivism: investigating the psychopathy checklist screening version (PCL: SV) and the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP) in a forensic psychiatric setting. Int J Forensic Ment Health 9(4):308–315
Skeem JL, Cooke DJ (2010) Is criminal behavior a central component of psychopathy? Conceptual directions for resolving the debate. Psychol Assess 22:433–445
Skeem JL, Polaschek DLL, Patrick CJ, Lilienfeld SO (2011) Psychopathic personality bridging the gap between scientific evidence and public policy. Psychol Sci Publ Interes 12(3):95–162
Smith GT, Fischer S, Fister S (2003) Incremental validity principles in test construction. Psychol Assess 15(4):467–477
Walters GD, Knight RA, Grann M, Dahle KP (2008) Incremental validity of the psychopathy checklist facet scores: predicting release outcome in six samples. J Abnorm Psychol 117(2):396
Yang M, Wong S, Coid J (2010) The efficacy of violence prediction: a meta-analytic comparison of nine risk assessment tools. Psychol Bull 136(5):740–767