Psychometric Properties of the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire Among a Sample of Detained and Community Girls

Abstract

Research on adolescent aggression often distinguishes between reactive and proactive aggression, but there is limited knowledge regarding the application or measurement of these subtypes of aggression among female youth, especially forensic samples of female youth. Drawing on 377 girls (103 selected from forensic settings and 274 selected from school settings) from Portugal, the current study is the first to simultaneously examine the psychometric properties of the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ) in incarcerated girls and community girls. The results support the use of the RPQ in terms of its two-factor structure, measurement invariance, internal consistency, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and known-groups validity. Significant associations were found with several criterion-related variables such as age of criminal onset, age of first problem with the law, conduct disorder, crime severity, violent crimes, and alcohol and drug use. Findings are discussed in terms of the use of the RPQ among incarcerated girls and community girls.

Factorial Analysis and Invariance Testing for Age and Gender of the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ)

“…It was confirmed that the structure with two interrelated factors and residual covariances has the best adjustment indicators regarding the other models, that is, aggression is constituted as a construct that can be measured by the RPQ from two dimensions, reactive and proactive aggression (Andreu et al, 2009;Raine et al, 2006), which allow the assessment of mixed aggression (Penado et al, 2014), as both are correlated (r=.663, p<.001). Also, this confirmed model coincides with previous cross-cultural reports (e.g Brugman et al, 2017;Fung et al, 2009;Pechorro et al, 2017;Tuvblad et al, 2016;Dinić & Raine, 2019).…”

“…In Spain, the RPQ reported favorable indicators for the bifactorial model for men and women, although the comparative scores between groups were significant in men (F =25.79, p<.001), and were not different in ages (F =0.50, p>.001) (Andreu et al, 2009). In Portugal, with a forensic and a community sample of adult women, in which favorable fit indicators were obtained for a correlated two-factor model, this data suggested that male and female samples have differential indicators concerning mixed samples, for example, high PA scores in women (Pechorro et al, 2017).…”

“…Currently, different studies have reviewed and obtained a solution of two correlated factors that have demonstrated the best fit, even in cross-cultural validations, findings that support the conceptual differences of PA and RA (e.g. Brugman et al, 2017 ; Fung, Raine, & Gao, 2009 ; Pechorro, Kahn, Ray, Raine, & Gonçalves, 2017 ; Tuvblad, Dhamija, Berntsen, Raine, & Liu, 2016 ). These differenes have not been reported in Latin America to date, particularly in studies of the structural confirmation of this construct, much less on its specific population variations.…”

Psychometric properties of Basic Empathy Scale among female juvenile delinquents and school youths

“…Higher scores indicate higher levels of aggression. The Portuguese validation of the RPQ (Pechorro, Kahn, Ray, Raine, & Gonçalves, 2017;Pechorro, Ray, Raine, Maroco, & Gonçalves, 2017) was used. Internal consistency for the present study, estimated by Cronbach's alpha, was 0.90.…”

Is Female Psychopathy Linked with Child Abuse? An Empirical Investigation using a Person-Centered Approach

“…More specifically, Colins, Fanti, Salekin, and Andershed (2017), using a sample of 2500 young community adults (aged 20-24 years; 52.6% females) in Sweden, identified subgroups of individuals based on their scores on three psychopathy dimensions (grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, and impulsive-irresponsible). LPA, conducted separately for men and women, showed five distinct psychopathy groups with similar class probabilities for the two genders, including high psychopathy groups comprising 12.9% of males and 1 Several comparative studies have examined psychopathy among girls using both samples of girls in clinical, forensic, or correctional settings and control samples of girls in the community (see, Frick, Bodin, & Barry, 2000;Leenarts et al, 2017;Oshukova et al, 2017;Pechorro et al, 2017). These studies have shown that clinical samples of girls are unilaterally more severe in their psychopathology, psychopathy, and offending; however, these works did not focus on the role of childhood abuse in the girls' backgrounds.…”