The Validity of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory—Revised in a Community Sample

Abstract

Research on the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R; Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005) initially revealed two factors: FearlessDominance, and Self-Centered Impulsivity. This study examined the validity of the PPI-R factors in a community sample (N=675). First, confirmatory factor analyses did not support the two-factor structure. Second, the PPI-R factors showed good convergent and discriminant validity with two other selfreport measures of psychopathy, i.e. the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI; Andershed, Kerr, Stattin, & Levander, 2002) and the Levenson's SelfReport of Psychopathy (LSRP; Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995). Third, PPI-R factors exhibited good external validity in relation to various theoretically relevant correlates. Our results indicate that the PPI-R factors have good convergent, discriminant, and external validity, but our confirmatory factor analysis raises concerns about the robustness of the twofactor structure.

Examining psychopathy from an attachment perspective: the role of fear of rejection and abandonment

“…However, the items (e.g., "I usually feel calm when other people are scared") are not youth-specific, and the few instances where youth-specific terms are used, the item is rephrased such that it is also applicable to adults (e.g., "If I won a lot of money in the lottery I would quit school or work and just do things that are fun"). It is therefore that the YPI has also appeared reliable and valid in undergraduate samples (e.g., Sherman, Lynam & Heyde, 2014) and in adults (e.g., Uzieblo et al, 2010), and that its factors showed adequate internal consistency in the present study. Concerning the interpretation of our results, one has to be aware that the YPI does not explicitly assess antisocial or criminal behavior, preventing us from to examine whether and to what extent the relation between the behavioral-lifestyle facet of psychopathy and attachment is related to antisociality.…”

Using the HEXACO Model of Personality to Test the Validity of the Durand Adaptive Psychopathic Traits Questionnaire

“…Related to the Emotionality factor, Fearfulness, Anxiety, and Dependence facets were negatively correlated to the DAPTQ, but not sentimentality. Multiple studies identified a link between PPI-I and resilience to fear and anxiety, alongside low emotional reactivity (López, Poy, Patrick, & Moltó, 2013;Uzieblo et al, 2010). Considering the strong association between PPI-I and the DAPTQ, these results support the capacity of the DAPTQ to assess adaptive traits closely related to the psychopathic personality (Durand, in press).…”

The inverse relation between psychopathy and faking good: not response bias, but true variance in psychopathic personality

“…To the extent that low faking good scores reflect real true aspects of psychopathy, controlling for faking good would actually reduce the relation between psychopathy and the criterion measures. For this purpose, we performed a secondary analysis on the data from Uzieblo et al (2010). We examined whether controlling for faking good increased -as predicted by the response bias hypothesisor decreased -as predicted by the true variance in psychopathy hypothesis -the expected positive association between psychopathy and antisocial behavior.…”