Further Validation of the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality-Self-Report (CAPP-SR) in Lithuanian Offender and Nonoffender Samples

Abstract

The Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP) is an emerging integrative model that makes use of 33 symptoms to characterize psychopathic personality disorder, but operationalizations of this model have not endured extensive validation to date. The current study sought to validate the recently published CAPP-Self-Report (CAPP-SR). Participants derived from two Lithuanian offender ( n = 231) and nonoffender ( n = 312) samples. They were administered the CAPP-SR, Triarchic Psychopathy Measure, Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire, and a subsample of offenders also had Offender Assessment System risk assessment scores available. The results showed that CAPP-SR total, domain, and symptom scores were associated with TriPM and Aggression Questionnaire scores in a manner consistent with conceptual expectations. CAPP-SR symptoms specifically reflective of aggression, anger, and antagonism were most strongly associated with Offender Assessment System risk scores. The findings provide support for construct validity of CAPP-SR scores as well as have implications for the CAPP model more broadly, which are discussed.

Content Validation of the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality—Basic Version (CAPP-Basic) Using Prototypical Analysis

“…The instrument has been shown to correlate strongly with other CAPP measures, and exhibits convergent validity with existing self-report measures of psychopathic personality (Sellbom et al, 2019). These findings have been supplemented by recent work within a sample of Lithuanian offenders (Sellbom et al, 2021), which suggested that the CAPP-SR exhibited incremental validity in predicting self-reported aggression as compared to other existing self-report measures (e.g., the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure; Patrick et al, 2009). Though research with the CAPP-SR is still in its infancy, initial results suggest the tool has potential for applied use in forensic and clinical screening settings when resources preclude the use of the more time-and asset-intensive CAPP-IRS.…”

Personality-based assessment of psychopathy: Comparison of the comprehensive assessment of psychopathic personality and the elemental psychopathy assessment.

“…A 4-point rating scale is used to respond to the 99 items, where 1 = false, 2 = mostly false, 3 = mostly true, 4 = true. Studies investigating the CAPP-SR validity have thus far shown promising results (Sellbom et al, 2019(Sellbom et al, , 2021Shou et al, 2020).…”

“…In particular, the relevance of these personality-based PPD models to criminal justice system variables (e.g., violence risk) should be evaluated, as such research has been limited to date (cf. Pedersen et al, 2010;Sellbom et al, 2021).…”

“…Majority, if not all, have shown consistently high ratings of prototypicality of the CAPP symptoms across different languages and countries (Flórez et al, 2015; Hoff et al, 2012, 2014; Kreis et al, 2012; Sea, 2018; Sörman et al, 2014). The CAPP has also demonstrated good validity and reliability across multiple languages and countries including Spanish, Danish, Korean and Chinese (Flórez et al, 2018; Kreis, 2009; McCormick et al, 2008; Pedersen et al, 2010; Sea, 2018; Sellbom et al, 2021; Shou et al, 2020). Good content validity, and gender consistencies, at both symptom and domain levels has also been established (Kreis & Cooke, 2011; Kreis et al, 2012).…”

Factor structure of the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality-Self-Report (CAPP-SR) in community and offender samples.

“…The CAPP-SR has already been described in detail earlier. The Lithuanian translation of the CAPP-SR (Sellbom et al, 2021) was used in the offender sample.…”