Hunting for Snarks: A Reply to McPhail (2019a)

Is paraphilic coercion a different construct from sadism or the lower end of an agonistic continuum?

“…Based on the empirical evidence, we believe that both proposals about PCD and the current diagnosis of sadism require reconceptualization. Consistency across procedures, measures, and samples constitutes the cornerstone of taxometrics (Longpré et al, 2020;Meehl, 2004).…”

“…MAMBAC, MAXEIG and L-Mode analyses produced results that are consistent with what one would expect for a dimensional structure and were similar to the curves generated for the simulated dimensional comparison data with no taxonic peaks evident (see Figure S1). Interpretation of the graphs should never, however, take precedence over the CCFIs, which embody the fundamental principles upon which Meehl's taxometrics were based and have repeatedly been shown to be accurate (Longpré, Knight, Guay, Benbouriche, & Walters, 2020). As can be seen in Table 2, all CCFI values were at or below .45 for both the 10% and 15% base rate analyses.…”

A Wolf in sheep’s clothing: taxometric evidence of the dimensional structure of stalking

“…taxon) and dimensional models of latent construct. A taxonic structure indicates that individuals presenting a characteristic are fundamentally different from those not presenting the characteristic, whereas a dimensional structure implies that inter-individual's variation is a matter of intensity, not nature (Longpr e et al, 2018(Longpr e et al, , 2020a(Longpr e et al, , 2020bMeehl, 1995;Ruscio et al, 2006). While natural boundaries (e.g.…”

“…While Stefanska et al (2021b have determined that stalking was sufficiently unidimensional to conduct Two-parameter Item Response Theory (2PL IRT) analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) analysis revealed the presence of six sub-factors: 1) Intrusive Communication, 2) Violent Behaviours, 3) Unwanted Communication, 4) Unwanted Appearance, 5) Proxy Behaviours and, 6) Implied Threats. Furthermore, both 2PL IRT and EFA are suboptimal analyses to uncover taxonic differences (Longpré et al , 2020a, 2020b) and taxometric analyses are required to adequately investigate the latent structure of a construct (Meehl, 2004; Ruscio et al , 2006).…”

“…dimensional structure) or that focus on a sub-group (e.g. taxonic structure), to the determination of a cut-off, to determining whether it is better to analyse a construct by categorizing individuals into groups or by considering the placement of individuals along a dimension (Knight et al , 2013; Longpré et al , 2020a; Meehl, 2004; Ruscio and Ruscio, 2004).…”