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This review paper discusses the construct of child and adolescent psychopathy and outlines controversy about the topic as well as some of the reasons that it might be developmentally appropriate. Past research has suggested that child psychopathy may be inapplicable to youth because the symptoms cannot be reliably distinguished from features of normative adolescent development. Concerns have also been raised regarding the possibility that the syndrome does not closely resemble the adult construct of psychopathy. We conclude that there is some truth to both sides of this story. Research shows that child psychopathy has a considerable degree of reliability and construct validity; however, there are also some important developmental differences. Furthermore, emerging evidence indicates potential changes in psychopathic symptoms over time and the important role of protective factors. Although, current research suggests that the concept of child psychopathy may be like an impressionist painting (i.e., clearer from a distance but messier as one gets closer), we argue this is not necessarily problematic from a developmental perspective. However, we conclude that a rigorous set of research studies will be needed to further advance our understanding of child psychopathy and the way it manifests itself over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) is a promising novel scale that measures psychopathic traits and includes an additional conduct disorder factor that taps the antisocial dimension of psychopathy. The current study sought to broaden the application of PSCD by examining the factor structure, convergent and discriminant validity, and connections to delinquency in a young adult sample ( N  = 450; M  = 31.91 years, SD  = 13.02 years) obtained from the Brazilian community. Participants completed a self-report version of the PSCD along with other theoretically meaningful psychometric measures. Results supported a four-factor intercorrelated factor structure, with male participants scoring significantly higher than female participants on the PSCD total, grandiose-manipulative (GM), callous-unemotional (CU), daring-impulsive (DI), and conduct disorder (CD) factors. The four factors of the PSCD mainly presented positive, moderate to high significant inter-correlations and adequate reliability. The convergent validity with measures of the dark tetrad of personality, difficulties in emotion regulation, and self-reported delinquency also revealed positive moderate significant associations. Our findings support the use of the PSCD as a promising short, time-effective self-report measure of psychopathic traits in young adults., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) is a tool designed to measure psychopathy through its grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, daring-impulsive, and conduct disorder subscales. The present study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the PSCD's parent and child self-report versions with a sample of 149 justice-involved youths (55% boys) and their parents (71% mothers) in Iran. Results indicated that both versions of the PSCD confirmed the originally proposed hierarchical four-factor structure. Internal consistency of both PSCD versions' component scores was satisfactory, and correlations with theoretically related variables supported the PSCD scores' validity. Also, good to excellent agreement between parent and child PSCD scores were found. The parent-report PSCD scores offered significant incremental validity over the child-version scores in predicting child-reported conduct problems, proactive aggression, and delinquency. Furthermore, both informant versions of the PSCD provided significant added values over an alternate measure of youth psychopathy in predicting externalizing psychopathology. The findings suggest that both versions of the PSCD are useful for assessing psychopathy subscales in Iranian justice-involved adolescents and hold promise for generating further research on this topic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Recent work indicates clinically meaningful differences in domains of psychopathic personality - such as grandiose-manipulative (GM), callous-unemotional (CU), and daring-impulsive (DI) traits - and parenting factors. Yet, different domains of parenting and reports from multiple informants may vary in their associations to psychopathic traits. This study examined psychopathic traits and their links with parental monitoring behaviors, parental knowledge, and adolescent disclosure. Further, we evaluated whether adolescents' self-reported resting arousal moderated these associations. A mixed clinic-referred/community sample of 134 adolescent-parent dyads (M age  = 14.49; SD = 0.50; 66.4% female) completed multi-dimensional measures of psychopathy, parental monitoring behaviors, parental knowledge, and adolescent disclosure; adolescents also self-reported on their resting arousal. Results indicated links between: (a) increased parent-reported GM traits and decreased parent-reported parental knowledge, and (b) increased parent-reported DI traits and lower parent-reported monitoring behaviors, which were attenuated at high levels of adolescent-reported resting arousal. Associations between elevated dimensions of psychopathic traits and lower levels of parental monitoring behaviors, parental knowledge, and adolescent disclosure were most consistent within-informants, with some cross-informant associations identified for links between elevated GM and DI and lower levels of parental monitoring behaviors and parental knowledge. These findings have important implications for our understanding of how to assess and prevent psychopathy and associated externalizing problems, and suggest that targeting modifiable environmental and psychophysiological factors may be particularly important., Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics Approval: All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Maryland at College Park’s Institutional Review Board and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Consent to Participate: Informed consent and assent was obtained from all individual participants in this study. Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest., (© 2024. Society for Prevention Research.)

Theories of psychopathy development traditionally emphasize that individuals high in psychopathy experience diminished internalizing symptoms (e.g., anxiety and depression). However, many studies find null or even positive relationships between psychopathy and internalizing. The current meta-analysis therefore aimed to provide a comprehensive understanding of heterogeneity in psychopathy-anxiety/depression relationships by examining measurement and sample-related variables that may moderate these associations (e.g., psychopathy subdimensions assessed, different measures/operationalizations of psychopathy and anxiety/depression, and demographic characteristics). Results suggest that psychopathy demonstrates a small, positive overall association with anxiety/depression (r = 0.09), which may indicate that psychopathy is unrelated to subjective experiences of anxiety and sadness, but results could also reflect that varying psychopathy and anxiety/depression assessment practices contribute to heterogeneity in psychopathy-anxiety/depression associations. Most notably, results indicate that associations vary substantially across different measures/operationalizations of psychopathy, even when controlling for sample type and informant. Some psychopathy scales could therefore inadvertently capture anxiety/depression symptoms or broader psychopathology in addition to psychopathic traits. Findings from the current meta-analysis can inform future efforts to understand how measurement-related considerations influence relationships between psychopathy and anxiety/depression., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest All authors declare they have no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD; Salekin & Hare, 2016) is a new self-report and informant measure designed to assess psychopathic characteristic domains along with symptoms of conduct disorder in youth. Previous factor analytic studies on the PSCD have found that the items are accounted for by a four-factor model reflecting grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, daring-impulsive, and conduct disorder (CD) symptoms. The present study examined the factor structure, psychometric properties, and criterion-related validity of the parent-report version of the PSCD (PSCD-P) in a nationally representative U.S. sample of children and adolescents (N = 1,091, Mage = 13.39, SD = 2.20, range age = 10-17; 50.0% boys, 76% White). Confirmatory factor analyses for the full (24-item) and a shortened (13-item) PSCD-P revealed good internal reliability estimates and support for the four-factor model (grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, daring-impulsive, CD). Results also provided evidence for (a) measurement invariance of the PSCD-P items across sex, race/ethnicity, and age of the child; (b) convergent validity with CD/oppositional defiant disorder symptoms and discriminant validity with a measure of neuroticism; and (c) criterion-related validity with respect to prosociality, peer and family functioning, reactive and proactive aggression, delinquency, academic performance, and substance use. The prevalence for psychopathic personality propensity was found to be 2%. We discuss clinical and research implications regarding the use of the parent-report version of the PSCD for school-aged children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD; Salekin in Pers Disord: Theory Res Treat 7:180-191, 2016) scale was designed to assess interrelated psychopathic trait domains in conjunction with symptoms of Conduct Disorder (CD) in children and adolescents (i.e., grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, daring-impulsive). Variable-centered studies have provided support for a four-factor PSCD structure (Salekin et al. in Psychol Assess 34(10):985-992, 2022) in line with other adolescent and adult studies. The current person-centered study used latent profile analysis of the PSCD domains to examine whether theoretically meaningful and empirically robust PSCD subtypes emerged from a diverse sample (70.9% White, 20.1% Black, 3.6% Hispanic, and 5.4% other) of adolescents (modal age = 17) in a military style residential facility (N = 409; Males = 80.6%). As hypothesized, a four-class solution was best, consistent with adult psychopathy subtyping research (Hare et al. in Handbook of Psychopathy 39-79, 2018; Roy et al. in Pers Disord: Theory Res Treat, in press). The PSCD subtype profiles were uniform across sex and race/ethnicity. Adolescents evincing a psychopathic trait propensity profile (elevated on all four PSCD domains) displayed the greatest number of arrests and higher overall externalizing psychopathology, compared to the other three latent classes, as well as higher internalizing psychopathology compared to adolescents with general delinquency. The PSCD provides a sound measure of psychopathic trait propensities in youth and our results offer investigators and clinicians a means for understanding person-centered psychopathic traits versus antisocial profiles among at-risk adolescents. Taken together, the current results may offer a viable approach for examining specific treatment targets based on PSCD subtype profiles., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

The current study examined the psychometric properties of the Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) in a sample of school-attending adolescent Belgian youth (N = 599; M age = 16.51 years, SD = 1.27). Given the recent interest in the PSCD-Short Version (PSCD-SV), this study focused on the 13-item variant of the PSCD. Study findings showed that the PSCD-SV had a hierarchical four-factor structure including the components of grandiose-manipulative (GM), callous-unemotional (CU), daring-impulsive (DI), and conduct disorder (CD). These interrelated factors were found to be internally consistent. The study also showed that the PSCD-SV total score was positively and significantly related to an alternate measure of psychopathy. Further, the study revealed the PSCD-SV was meaningfully related to the five-factor personality domains (i.e., extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness) as well as peer functioning and prosocial behavior. Bivariate correlations demonstrated that the dimensions differed in their associations with external correlates (e.g., peer functioning). Regression analyses showed that the GM, CU, and CD components of the PSCD-SV were uniquely associated to externalizing difficulties, whereas only the GM and CU components of the PSCD-SV were associated with low prosocial behaviors. These findings shed light on the conceptual and developmental models for the consideration of psychopathy and conduct problems. The use of the broader psychopathy condition as well as its underpinning dimensions may have important implications for assessment, treatment, and diagnostic manuals. The implications of the current study are further discussed., (© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment on Oct 26 2023 (see record 2024-19662-001). In the original article, the authors changed the order of authorship from "Blair D. Batky, Allison N. Shields, Jennifer L. Tackett, and Randall T. Salekin" to "Blair D. Batky, Allison N. Shields, Randall T. Salekin, and Jennifer L. Tackett." All versions of this article have been corrected. The names appear correctly in this record.] Callous-unemotional (CU) traits (i.e., tendencies to experience low levels of guilt and empathy) are associated with severe and persistent conduct problems in youth. However, some youth with elevated CU traits do not exhibit severe externalizing problems, and further research is needed to identify conditions under which CU traits are more versus less strongly associated with higher levels of externalizing behavior. To this end, the current preregistered study examined whether internalizing problems, five-factor model personality traits, and parenting practices moderated associations between CU traits and externalizing problems. Caregivers of 1,232 youth ages 6-18 ( M age = 11.46) reported on youths' CU traits, externalizing, internalizing, and five-factor model traits as well as on their own parenting practices. We found that the relationship between CU traits and externalizing was robust to the moderating effects of internalizing problems and parenting practices, but CU traits were more strongly related to externalizing problems at higher levels of neuroticism and at lower levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness. Results contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of externalizing problems among youth high in CU traits and may inform future longitudinal and intervention research seeking to identify factors that reduce externalizing behavior among high-CU youth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The Proposed Specifier for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) was developed to measure the broad psychopathy construct with grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, daring-impulsive, and conduct disorder subscales. This study tested the psychometric properties of Persian parent-and-child self-report PSCD versions with 974 parents (86% mothers) and children/adolescents (46.5% boys) dyads. Results showed that with some modifications the proposed hierarchical four-factor structure for both PSCDs was confirmed and was found to be invariant across gender. Across versions, all PSCD scores were internally consistent and demonstrated expected correlations with parent-reported externalizing problems, anxiety/depression, and poor school performance, supporting the PSCDs scores' validity. This study also is the first to examine and establish acceptable to excellent parent-child agreement of PSCD scores. Finally, all PSCD child-report scores offered small though significant incremental validity over their corresponding PSCD parent-version scores in predicting parent-reported conduct problems and proactive aggression. Findings indicated that both Persian PSCDs may hold promise for assessing psychopathy components in Iranian school-attending adolescents and generating additional research on this topic.

The present study aims to further examine the four-factor model of psychopathy in adolescence with a new alternate model for the assessment of psychopathic traits and conduct disorder (CD): The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder-Short version (PSCD-SV). Data were collected in a sample of 414 adolescents (49.2% females) aged 12-15 at the first assessment who were then followed-up 2 years later. Results supported the usefulness of the PSCD-SV to assess the broader construct of psychopathy showing good psychometric properties, including adequate reliability and validity, while accounting for all its dimensions. In addition, the study showed close associations between psychopathic traits and adolescent behavioral, emotional and psychosocial maladjustment. Finally, the findings elucidated the PSCD's connection to parental support and psychological control, and reinforced the potential role of parenting practices as predictors that can act as mechanisms of change in the development of psychopathy. Overall, current findings shed light on conceptual and developmental models of psychopathy that may have implications for assessment, diagnostic classification, prevention, and intervention., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Child psychopathic traits appear to be associated with negative outcomes. Despite the study of youth psychopathy often relying on multiple reporters (e.g., child, caregivers, teachers), there is limited insight into how much information these various sources contribute and moreover, how this information is integrated. The present study sought to address this gap in the literature by examining the magnitude of relationships between self- and other-reported youth psychopathy and negative outcomes (e.g., delinquency, aggression) using a meta-analytic approach. Results revealed a moderate association between psychopathic traits and negative outcomes. Moderator analyses showed a greater relationship for other- than self-reported psychopathy, although not to a substantive extent. Results further indicated the magnitude of the overall psychopathy-negative outcomes association was stronger for externalizing than internalizing outcomes. Study findings can inform improvements in the assessment of youth psychopathy across research and practice, in addition to advancing our understanding of the utility of psychopathic traits in the prediction of clinically relevant outcomes. This review also provides guidance for future multisource raters and source-specific information in the study of psychopathy in youth., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Youth who experience psychopathy display multiple impairments across interpersonal (grandiose-manipulative [GM]), affective (callous-unemotional [CU]), lifestyle (daring-impulsive [DI]), and potentially antisocial and behavioral features. Recently, it has been acknowledged that the inclusion of psychopathic features can offer valuable information in relation to the etiology of Conduct Disorder (CD). Yet, prior work largely focuses on the affective component of psychopathy, namely CU. This focus creates uncertainty in the literature on the incremental value of a multicomponent approach to understanding CD-linked domains. Consequently, researchers developed the Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD; Salekin & Hare, 2016) as a multicomponent approach to assess GM, CU, and DI features in combination with CD symptoms. The notion of considering the wider set of psychopathic features for CD specification requires testing whether multiple personality dimensions predict domain-relevant criterion outcomes above-and-beyond a CU-based approach. Thus, we tested the psychometric properties of parents' reports on the PSCD (PSCD-P) in a mixed clinical/community sample of 134 adolescents (M age = 14.49, 66.4% female). Confirmatory factor analyses resulted in a 19-item PSCD-P displaying acceptable reliability estimates and a bifactor solution consisting of GM, CU, DI, and CD factors. Findings supported the incremental validity of scores taken from the PSCD-P across multiple criterion variables, including (a) an established survey measure of parent-adolescent conflict; and (b) trained independent observers' ratings of adolescents' behavioral reactions to laboratory controlled tasks designed to simulate social interactions with unfamiliar peers. These findings have important implications for future research on the PSCD and links to adolescents' interpersonal functioning., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) scale was developed to advance the study of child and adolescent psychopathy, especially as it relates to conduct disorder. This study is the first to test the factor structure, measurement invariance, internal consistency, and validity of the Persian PSCD self-report version in a gender-mixed sample of 1,506 school-attending 11 to 18 years old youth ( M age = 15.23; SD  = 1.83; 49.60% boys). Confirmatory factor analysis supported the proposed four-factor hierarchical structure of the PSCD, though with 19 items loaded on grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, daring-impulsive, and conduct disorder components. This factor structure was also invariant across gender. The PSCD total and four components scores were internally consistent and exhibited the expected relations with proactive aggression, externalizing problems, anxiety and depression, and poor school performance, supporting the PSCD scores' convergent, discriminant, and criteria validity. The findings indicated that with some modifications, the Persian PSCD might hold promise for assessing psychopathy components in Iranian school-attending adolescents and may spark additional research in a variety of settings.

This is the first study to test the psychometric properties of the self-report version of the Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) in detained youth. The PSCD is a measure of the broad psychopathy construct, with grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, daring-impulsive, and conduct disorder (CD) components. Participants (227 males) completed the PSCD along with other measures, including a diagnostic interview to assess Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM- 5) CD. Results support the PSCD's proposed hierarchical four-factor structure. Correlations with an alternate measure of psychopathy and symptoms of CD support the convergent validity of PSCD scores. PSCD scores showed positive associations with criterion variables of emotional and regulatory functioning, aggression, substance use, and school problems. Finally, PSCD scores were unrelated to anxiety and depression, supporting the PSCD's discriminant validity. Findings indicate that the PSCD is a promising measure for assessing psychopathic traits in detained male adolescents, though its incremental validity is in need of further scrutiny.

Psychopathic traits in community and referred youths are strongly associated with severe externalizing problems and low prosocial behavior. However, less is known about the mechanisms that may link youth psychopathy and these outcomes. Social dominance orientation (SDO), defined as the general individual orientation toward unequal and dominant/subordinate relationships, might represent a valuable construct to explore to better understand the association between psychopathic traits, externalizing problems, and prosocial behavior. Based on this, the current study aimed to investigate the relationship between psychopathic traits, SDO, externalizing problems, and prosocial behavior in a community sample ( N = 92, 45.57% females, mean age = 12.53, and SD = 0.60) and in a clinical ( N = 29, 9% female, mean age = 12.57, and SD = 0.57) samples of adolescents with Oppositional Defiant Disorder or Conduct Disorder. Results showed that SDO mediated the relationship between psychopathic traits and externalizing problems and between psychopathic traits and prosocial behavior only in the clinical sample. These findings can provide valuable information on psychopathic trait correlates in youths with aggressive behavior disorders; treatment implications are discussed.

The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) was developed as a measure to assess the multifaceted model of psychopathic traits in children/youth (i.e., grandiose-manipulative [GM], callous-unemotional [CU], and daring-impulsive [DI] traits) in addition to Conduct Disorder (CD) symptoms. This study aims to test the psychometric properties of the PSCD-self-report version across community ( n = 648; 52.9% female) and forensic male youth ( n = 258) from the Portuguese population. Results supported a general factor and four specific factors (GM, CU, DI, CD), which was invariant across gender and sample type. Evidence for reliability, construct, and temporal validity were also found. Overall, the PSCD appears to be a promising measure for assessing psychopathic traits in youth from both community and forensic settings, which may contribute to the discussion around the conceptualization, assessment, predictive value, and clinical usefulness of the multifaceted model of psychopathy in youthful populations, particularly in its association with CD.

Frick (2022) presented a narrative review of some literature and made several critical comments regarding the extension of the full psychopathy construct to research and classification of childhood disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs). His arguments cautioned against the use of the multicomponent concept of psychopathy for specification of DBDs for several reasons including definitional issues, symptom sequencing, specifier versus risk factor considerations, potential overlap with other disorders and criteria (e.g., ADHD), and concerns regarding harm. While I agree with Frick (2022) that we need to be cautious when extending personality constructs to the DBDs, the remaining arguments in his paper fall short of calling for the exclusion of psychopathy components in the examination of DBDs. Rather, the counterpoints in this paper further convince that the multidimensional model of psychopathy, when applied to the DBDs, could better facilitate understanding of the etiology and mechanisms for Conduct Disorder (CD), and, it may help us to predict the prognosis and treatment outcomes of children with various forms of DBDs such as CD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). To have the most informative designs, future research should examine the broad construct to glean a better understanding of psychopathy and the DBDs. Further, research should continue to examine sequencing and external correlates at the component level and to test the incremental value of the multicomponent model of psychopathy to help us better comprehend how each component may facilitate our understanding of the types and severity of conduct problems exhibited by youth with DBDs (i.e., CD, ODD)., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder scale (PSCD; Salekin & Hare, 2016) is a new scale for the assessment of psychopathic characteristic domains in children and adolescents. The four domains are Grandiose-manipulative (GM), Callous-unemotional (CU), Daring-impulsive (DI), and Conduct Disorder (CD). We examined the properties of the self-report version of the PSCD in a large sample of adolescents ( n = 409; age = 16-19; 80.6% male) in a military-style residential facility. Factor analytic results supported a four-factor model consistent with other PSCD research (e.g., López-Romero et al., 2019; Luo et al., 2021). Structural equation model (SEM) indicated a superordinate PSCD factor accounted for significant variance in self-reported delinquency history. The PSCD had good internal consistency and strong convergent and discriminant validity with measures of externalizing and internalizing disorders. The present study provides encouraging data that the PSCD may provide a sound measure of psychopathic propensities in youth. However, additional data are needed to test the stability of the PSCD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The concept of "successful" psychopathy has intrigued the field, yet relatively little actual science exists to understand what makes those high in psychopathic traits more or less successful, or even what constitutes "success." In the current study, we examined the validity of the moderated expression hypothesis, including an elaborated version that considers differential configuration of psychopathy traits, as accounting for differences in criminal and noncriminal (the most common operationalization of "success") expressions of psychopathy. The latter was conceptualized from the perspective of the triarchic psychopathy model. We recruited a community sample (n = 212) that had been overweighted toward psychopathic personality traits. The triarchic psychopathy domains of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition were modeled as latent constructs based on scores from multiple psychopathy measures. We examined affective processing dysfunction, various executive cognitive deficits, substance misuse, and socioeconomic indicators (income, education) as potential moderators of associations between psychopathy and criminality. We estimated a series of latent regression models in which we tested interaction effects between hypothesized moderators and a latent criminality variable. We found that affective processing dysfunction, substance misuse, and the triarchic psychopathy domain of disinhibition all moderated the association between meanness and criminality, in that the latter association was stronger as these moderators increased in severity. Disinhibition was also moderated by substance misuse and boldness by both personal income and commission errors from a go/no-go task, though in the case of the latter domain, these moderators served as protective factors against criminality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Dvoskin et al. (2022) offered a cautionary comment on an article published in the Journal of Personality Disorders (López-Romero et al., 2021). This comment was focused on the scientific and policy grounds of our study, and cautioned against the use of the "putative psychopathic personality" label for applied purposes. While we agree with most of their concerns and cautions, we aim to provide additional clarification on the raised concerns, noting that the purpose of our study is purely exploratory, and that its findings are not intended for applied purposes. We do expect that our study and this commentary will further clarify the importance of examining psychopathic personality from a developmental perspective, opening new ways of discussion regarding how to best conceptualize and study a construct that, while waiting for additional longitudinal research, has been shown as relevant in identifying a group of children and adolescents at increased risk for maladjustment.

This study aimed to further validate the self-reported version of the Proposed Specifiers Conduct Disorder (PSCD) scale, testing the associations between the PSCD with a scale that measures emotional/behavioral difficulties and prosocial behaviors (Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire, SDQ). A total of 536 Italian students (47.76% male; 11-14 years) completed the PSCD, while their caregivers and teachers completed the SDQ. A series of confirmatory factor analyses to test the best fitting model were run. The internal consistency of the PSCD was evaluated, and the correlations between the PSCD self-reported scores and SDQ Parent and Teacher report scores were examined. A bi-factor model was fitted with a refined 19-item version of the scale, which showed adequate fit indices. The PSCD total score was strongly associated with higher parent- and teacher-rated conduct problems, hyperactivity, and lower prosocial behavioral symptoms. In conclusion, this study indicated that the self-report PSCD shows preliminary promise as a reliable, easy-to-use tool, for measuring psychopathic traits in Italian children and young adolescents.

The idea that very young children can manifest a constellation of personality traits that looks like psychopathy has rarely been explored. To fill this void, data from 2,247 children, aged 3-6 years (M = 4.25; SD = 0.91), from the Estudio Longitudinal para una Infancia Saludable (ELISA) were utilized. Parents and teachers completed questionnaires at baseline and at 1-year follow-up. Using three parent-rated psychopathy dimensions as indicators, the authors conducted latent profile analysis and arrived at five latent classes: Control (39.2%), Impulsive-Need for Stimulation (34.8%), Grandiose-Deceitful (16.5%), Callous-Unemotional (6.2%), and Putative Psychopathic Personality (PP, 3.3%). Children in the PP class, overall, engaged in higher levels of concurrent, future, and stable conduct problems and reactive and proactive aggression, and lower levels of prosocial behavior, as rated by parents or teachers. Findings also revealed meaningful differences between the remaining four classes. Person-oriented analyses seem to offer a fruitful avenue to identify 3-to 6-year-olds who exhibit a putative psychopathic personality and are at risk for future maladjustment.

The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) Scale is a new measure to assess psychopathic traits and symptoms of conduct disorder (CD) in children and adolescents. The current study examined the psychometric properties of the self-report version of the PSCD in a sample of community adolescents in mainland China ( N = 1,683; mean age = 13.60, SD = 1.14; 54.1% boys). The new instrument showed good internal consistency (alpha) for the 24-item total scale and good mean interitem correlations for each of the six-item subscales. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were conducted on all 24 items, and also a subset of 13 items that demonstrated strong item-level reliabilities. Using all 24 items, CFA results supported a four-factor bifactor model indicating the total score reflects a broad syndrome with four factors. The four factors included grandiose-manipulative traits (GM traits), callous-unemotional traits (CU traits), daring-impulsive traits (DI traits), and CD traits. The 13-item CFA results provided further support for a four-factor conceptualization of the PSCD and evidence of strong measurement invariance across gender. Finally, the PSCD exhibited the expected relations with other psychopathy measures, anxiety and depression, and aggression, supporting the PSCD scores convergent, discriminant, and criterion related validity. The findings provide preliminary evidence for the four-factor structure of the PSCD and support for the utility of the self-report PSCD for measuring psychopathic traits and CD in Chinese adolescents.

Objective: To assess the efficacy of the PSYCHOPATHY.COMP program in reducing psychopathic traits among male detained youth., Method: In this controlled trial, a treatment group (n = 58) and a control group (n = 61) answered the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory-Short (YPIS) and the Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) at baseline, posttreatment, and 6-month follow-up. Treatment participants attended the PSYCHOPATHY.COMP; controls only received Treatment As Usual (TAU). Treatment effects were tested with latent growth curve models (LGCM)., Results: At baseline, no significant differences between groups were found. Results from LGCM showed that condition was a significant predictor of change over time observed in almost all outcome measures. Concerning the YPIS, treatment participants presented a significant decrease both in the total score and in the YPIS factors scores when compared with the controls (medium/large effect sizes; growth modeling analysis-GMA d ranging from .58 to 1.12). Considering the PSCD, treatment participants also showed a significant decrease both in the total score and in the PSCD factors scores (except for the grandiose-manipulative factor) when compared with controls (medium effect sizes; GMA d ranging from .53 to .72). Results also showed that treatment effects were maintained 6 months after the PSYCHOPATHY.COMP completion., Conclusions: Findings indicate that the PSYCHOPATHY.COMP is a promising treatment approach to reduce psychopathic traits among male detained youth, suggesting that interventions targeting these traits should be considered in their rehabilitation, as the absence of tailored interventions may increase the levels of psychopathic traits and their associated risks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Prominent theory suggests that factor one psychopathic traits may develop from increased input from hormones in the hypothalamic pituitary gonadal axis (HPG; i.e., testosterone) and decreased input from the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis (HPA; i.e., cortisol). Although there are extensive findings connecting low cortisol to psychopathy, less support has emerged for high levels of testosterone. This study examined whether incorporating the HPG hormone, estradiol, into this model would reveal relationships in line with theory: high levels of estradiol and testosterone in combination with low levels of cortisol would inform psychopathic traits. Baseline and reactive hormone levels were measured and compared to Psychopathy Checklist-Youth Version (PCL-YV) interviews among 66 male justice-involved youth (M age = 15.73) in a Southeastern juvenile detention center. The primary findings of this study were relationships between interacting HPA and HPG axis hormones with facet one and facet two psychopathic traits. Specifically, psychopathy total scores, interpersonal traits, and affective traits related to estradiol and testosterone reactivity, in that psychopathy scores were more likely with decreases in hormone reactivity (i.e., change in hormone level) following a stressor. Moreover, affective traits related to reactivity in all three hormones. These findings support inclusion of estradiol in neurobiological models of psychopathy and consideration of the individual components of psychopathy. This study adds to the growing body of research supporting interactions between variations in functioning of the HPA and HPG axes in relation to psychopathy., (© 2020 Society for Psychophysiological Research.)

Emotional processing deficits are often considered central to psychopathy. There is evidence that those high in psychopathy pay less attention to emotional stimuli, and it is possible that these individuals experience diminished withdrawal motivation or heightened approach motivation in response to emotional stimuli. Studying emotional processing abnormalities, especially among youth, may be essential for better understanding psychopathy's development and for informing interventions. However, few studies on psychopathy have experimentally manipulated emotional processing, and despite the growing literature on neuroscience and psychopathy, there are aspects of neural activity that have yet to be investigated. The current study used a sample of 52 justice-involved youth to examine how psychopathy, as measured by the Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder scale, relates to frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA), a neural correlate of approach and withdrawal motivation. Alpha asymmetry was first measured at rest and then while youth were asked to process emotional stimuli spontaneously as well as to increase and decrease their responses to emotional stimuli. Results indicated that total psychopathy was not related to FAA at rest or during task performance. However, youth higher in callous-unemotional traits demonstrated similar patterns of neural activity to youth lower in callous-unemotional traits when instructed to increase their response to emotional stimuli. These findings were not evident for grandiose-manipulative or daring-impulsive traits. These findings may indicate that youth high in callous-unemotional traits are capable of modulating their emotional responding, which could in turn have treatment implications for youth high in psychopathic traits., (© 2020 Society for Psychophysiological Research.)

The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) scale (Salekin & Hare, 2016) was developed as a measure of the broader construct of psychopathy in childhood and adolescence. In addition to conduct disorder (CD) symptoms, the PSCD addresses the interpersonal (grandiose-manipulative), affective (callous-unemotional), and lifestyle (daring-impulsive) traits of psychopathic personality. The PSCD can be scored by parents and teachers. The present study is a preliminary test of the psychometric properties of the PSCD-Parent Version in a sample of 2,229 children aged 3 to 6 years. Confirmatory factor analyses supported both a 3- and 4-factor structure being invariant across gender groups. The validity of the PSCD was also supported by convergent-divergent associations with an alternative measure of psychopathic traits as well as by the expected relations with fearlessness, conduct problems, reactive and proactive aggression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder symptoms, and social competence skills. Overall, the PSCD is a promising alternative measure for assessing early manifestation of the broader construct of psychopathy in children. Its use should facilitate discussion of the conceptualization, assessment, predictive value, and clinical usefulness of the psychopathic construct as it relates to CD at early developmental stages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Studies related to psychopathy and EEG have increased over the past decade making it a good time to examine where the field is on this topic as well as to determine future directions. The current study reviewed 68 research reports that focused on psychopathy and various components of EEG. We examined early, mid, and late level ERP processing as well as spectra analyses. The results indicate that psychopathic individuals exhibit generally unencumbered performance categorizing cognitive stimuli and demonstrate the typical facilitation of physical responses commensurate with an intact orienting response. Moreover, the results suggest that individuals with elevated psychopathic traits are especially adept at screening out distracting threat-related and other irrelevant information allowing them to allocate attention to stimuli that are goal-relevant. Those with elevated psychopathic traits also do not appear to have significant impairments in associative learning or error processing. Where psychopathic individuals diverge most from those with low levels of these traits is in relation to processing affect-laden content. In some contexts, psychopathic individuals appear to quickly terminate the processing of emotional information and in other contexts (e.g., seeing others in pain) they elaborately process emotional information both of which may help explain their prototypical lack of conscience. Much of the aberrant functioning of those with elevated psychopathic traits depends on the psychopathy factor being examined with F1 traits showing less cognitive impairment than F2 traits. Recommendations for future research are provided., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Researchers have advocated for a greater focus on measuring neurobiological underpinnings of serious psychological conditions such as psychopathy. This has become particularly important to investigate early in the life span, when intervention efforts for psychopathy-related behavior like conduct disorder (CD) are more successful. Given that psychopathy is a complex syndrome, it is also important to investigate physiological processes at a dimensional level. Using a sample of 56 adolescent male offenders (M age = 15.92; SD = 1.31), this study explored the relationship between the Psychopathy Checklist-Youth Version (Forth, Kosson, & Hare, 2003), heart rate (HR), and skin conductance (SC). A white noise countdown task was used to measure autonomic activity across a baseline, anticipatory (prenoise), and reactivity (postnoise) period. Findings revealed no significant associations between psychopathy and HR activity across the time intervals. However, results revealed a positive association between grandiose-manipulative traits and SC activity and a negative association between callous-unemotional traits and SC activity. The results indicate that autonomic processes may contribute to distinct psychopathic traits in different ways, implicating slightly differential brain functioning. The findings suggest that, in order to better understand and treat youth with CD, future research should continue to examine the biological correlates of psychopathy at the broader construct level but perhaps especially at the component level., (© 2019 Society for Psychophysiological Research.)

Psychopathy is often perceived as a constellation of personality traits, yet there is little consensus as to what constitutes the core features of psychopathy. We applied a network approach to investigate the psychopathy network, as operationalized by four self-report measures of psychopathy among a large sample of undergraduate students. Items assessing manipulativeness and irresponsibility/impulsivity had the strongest centrality indices in the item-level psychopathy network models. Stimulus seeking, social deviance, and interpersonal/affective traits were the most central domains in the psychopathy network derived from all factors in the four psychopathy measures. Network analysis may offer an alternative approach to help researchers identify characteristics that are important in the psychopathy network. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The current study examined the reliability and validity of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory-Short Version (YPI-S) in two different samples of at-risk adolescents enrolled in a residential program ( n = 160) and at a detention facility ( n = 60) in the United States. YPI-S scores displayed adequate internal consistency and were moderately associated with concurrent scales on other self-report psychopathy measures and externalizing behaviors. YPI-S scores were moderately related to interviewer-ratings of the construct using the four-factor model of the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version. Findings suggest that the YPI-S may be a clinically useful and valid tool for the assessment of psychopathic traits in juvenile settings. This may be particularly true given the differential predictive utility of each of its dimensions.

Although low prosocial behavior (LPB) items have been incorporated into youth measures of callousness, it remains unclear from current factor analytic findings whether callous traits and LPB are best operationalized as a common construct, or distinct dimensions. Using data from a population-representative birth cohort (N = 5,463), this study compared 4 latent factor structures for interpersonal callousness (IC; 6 items) and LPB (5 items) at age 13: (a) unidimensional; (b) two-factor; (c) higher-order (with 2 subfactors); and (d) bifactor (1 general and 2 specific residual factors). Alternative models distinguishing positively and negatively worded items were tested for comparative purposes. To assess the external validity of the factors that emerged from the best-fitting model, associations with early parenting styles and psychiatric comorbidities were examined. A bifactor model, achieving invariance for males and females, offered the best fit for these data. However, additional bifactor-specific indices suggested that the specific IC factor did not offer a unique contribution to the total variance over and above the general factor (IC/LPB). Of the remaining factors, IC/LPB was associated with higher levels of harsh parenting, externalizing and internalizing disorder, and social-cognitive difficulties, and lower levels of warm parenting. The LPB factor, meanwhile, was associated with greater social-cognitive difficulties and externalizing disorder, and lower maternal warmth, evoking a phenotype that may be more indicative of the autism spectrum than IC. These findings suggest that the shared variance underlying IC and LPB taps a severe psychiatric phenotype, while the residual variance for LPB may represent a distinct profile of social-cognitive dysfunction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

This study investigates whether primary and secondary variants of psychopathy can be identified in an applied, forensic setting based on self-reports of psychopathy and anxiety. Data were available for two samples of detained boys (Sample A: N = 847, Sample B: N = 749). Using three psychopathy dimensions and anxiety as clustering variables, latent profile analysis arrived at 4 latent classes (LCs) that were tentatively labeled as control (LC1), high anxiety (LC2), moderate psychopathy (LC3), and high psychopathy (LC4). Boys in LC4 engaged in higher levels of alcohol/drug use, conduct problems, reactive and proactive aggression than their counterparts in LC1 and in higher levels of conduct problems, alcohol/drug use, and proactive aggression than boys in LC3. Findings further indicated that the risk for future nonviolent arrests was the highest in LC4 as compared with LC2 and LC3, though no class differences in risk for future violent arrests emerged. Overall, these findings were well replicated in Sample B. Exploratory analyses included additional measures of negative affect (depressed feeling and anger-irritability), maltreatment, and/or number of past arrests (as proxy of a 4th psychopathy dimension) as clustering variables and identified all but 1 (LC3) of the 4 aforementioned LCs. Notwithstanding that our findings challenge the expected relevance of differentiating primary and secondary variants of youth psychopathy, they do suggest that it is possible to identify detained boys with high levels of psychopathic traits who display features associated with adult psychopathy. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth edition ( DSM-5) Personality and Personality Disorders workgroup developed the Personality Inventory for the DSM-5 (PID-5) for the assessment of the alternative trait model for DSM-5. Along with this measure, the American Psychiatric Association published an abbreviated version, the PID-5-Brief form (PID-5-BF). Although this measure is available on the DSM-5 website for use, only two studies have evaluated its psychometric properties and validity and no studies have examined the U.S. version of this measure. The current study evaluated the reliability, factor structure, and construct validity of PID-5-BF scale scores. This included an evaluation of the scales' associations with Section II PDs, a well-validated dimensional measure of personality psychopathology, and broad externalizing and internalizing psychopathology measures. We found support for the reliability of PID-5-BF scales as well as for the factor structure of the measure. Furthermore, a series of correlation and regression analyses showed conceptually expected associations between PID-5-BF and external criterion variables. Finally, we compared the correlations with external criterion measures to those of the full-length PID-5 and PID-5-Short form. Intraclass correlation analyses revealed a comparable pattern of correlations across all three measures, thereby supporting the use of the PID-5-BF as a screening measure of dimensional maladaptive personality traits.

The current study examined the factor structure and convergent and discriminant validity of the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy scale (LSRP) in Chinese male inmates (N = 437). The original 2-factor model, the revised 2-factor model, and the 3-factor model were tested through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Additionally, convergent and discriminant validity were examined via correlational and multiple linear regression analyses between LSRP factors and external criterion variables. Results showed that the 3-factor model fit the data better than the 2-factor model. The 3-factor model also showed reasonable convergent and discriminant validity. The findings were consistent with previous studies and suggested that the LSRP can be an effective self-report measure for assessing psychopathy in China. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

The investigation of callous-unemotional (CU) traits has been central to contemporary research on child behavior problems, and served as the impetus for inclusion of a specifier for conduct disorder in the latest edition of the official psychiatric diagnostic system. Here, we report results from 2 studies that evaluated the construct validity of callousness as assessed in adults, by testing for affiliated deficits in behavioral and neural processing of fearful faces, as have been shown in youthful samples. We hypothesized that scores on an established measure of callousness would predict reduced recognition accuracy and diminished electocortical reactivity for fearful faces in adult participants. In Study 1, 66 undergraduate participants performed an emotion recognition task in which they viewed affective faces of different types and indicated the emotion expressed by each. In Study 2, electrocortical data were collected from 254 adult twins during viewing of fearful and neutral face stimuli, and scored for event-related response components. Analyses of Study 1 data revealed that higher callousness was associated with decreased recognition accuracy for fearful faces specifically. In Study 2, callousness was associated with reduced amplitude of both N170 and P200 responses to fearful faces. Current findings demonstrate for the first time that callousness in adults is associated with both behavioral and physiological deficits in the processing of fearful faces. These findings support the validity of the CU construct with adults and highlight the possibility of a multidomain measurement framework for continued study of this important clinical construct. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

This study investigated how well components of the psychopathy trait are measured among college students with the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP), the Personality Assessment Inventory-Antisocial Features Scale (PAI ANT), the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Short Form (PPI-SF), and the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-II (SRP-II). Using Samejima (1969)'s graded response model (GRM), the subscales were found to vary in their ability to measure the corresponding latent traits. The LSRP primary psychopathy factor is more precise in measuring the latent trait than the secondary psychopathy factor. The PAI ANT items show coherent psychometric properties, whereas the PPI-SF factors differ in their precision to measure the corresponding traits. The SRP-II factors are effective in discriminating among individuals with varying levels of the latent traits. Results suggest that multiple self-report measures should be used to tap the multidimensional psychopathy construct. However, there are concerns with respect to using negatively worded items to assess certain aspects of psychopathy. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

The RSTI-SR was recently designed to facilitate juvenile evaluations by tapping 3 pertinent juvenile psycho-legal variables including risk, developmental maturity, and treatment amenability. The present study examined the factor structure and construct validity of the RSTI-SR with 190 adolescent offenders (Mage = 15.6) who completed the RSTI-SR and a short battery of theoretically relevant psychological measures. The findings from the current study demonstrated that the proposed 3-factor model for the RSTI produced good fit to the data. Factorial invariance testing further found the model to be tenable for both male and female young offenders. Moreover, preliminary construct validity was established for the RSTI-SR factors through significant associations with relevant external variables including psychopathy, general personality (e.g., extraversion, agreeableness), coping, openness, and well-being. Initial results show the RSTI-SR to be a promising new measure for assessing the functioning of young offenders. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

The aim of this study was to compare two youth psychopathy models (i.e., callous-unemotional versus multidimensional model) in their ability to predict future and stable conduct problems (CP). At baseline, mothers and fathers of 321 boys and 369 girls (ages 7-12) completed measures that tap callous-unemotional and other psychopathic traits. Parent-reported CP was collected at baseline and at 6- and 12 month follow-ups. Children were assigned to mutually exclusive groups based on their levels of CP and psychopathic traits. Children with CP who manifested callous-unemotional traits ( Callous-Unemotional + CP ) were occasionally at risk for future and stable CP. Yet, across gender, children with CP scoring high on all psychopathic trait dimensions ( Psychopathic Personality + CP ) showed the most robust and highest risk for future and stable CP. Also, Callous-Unemotional + CP children, and children who were only high in CP, often were at similar risk for future CP. The findings suggest that the callous-unemotional model is less sufficient than the multidimensional model in predicting future and stable CP. This can be concluded for both boys and girls and calls for more research reconsidering the multidimensional nature of psychopathy for CP subtyping purposes., Competing Interests: Compliance with Ethical StandardsOlivier F. Colins, Henrik Andershed, Randall T. Salekin, and Kostas A. Fanti declare that they have no conflict of interest.All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.Informed consent was obtained from parents and assent was obtained from youth included in the study.

The aim of this study was to compare callous-unemotional (CU) traits versus the multidimensional psychopathy construct in their ability to predict future and stable antisocial behavior. At baseline, a community sample of 996 Cypriot 12-year old adolescents (52% girls) completed measures that tap conduct problems (CP) and psychopathic traits, including CU. CP, aggression, and substance use were self-reported at 1-3 year follow-ups. Youths were assigned to six mutually exclusive groups based on their baseline levels of CP and psychopathic traits. Youth with CP scoring high on all three psychopathic traits dimensions ( Psychopathic Personality + CP ) showed the most robust and highest risk for future and stable CP, aggression, and substance use, followed by youth who were high on all three psychopathic traits dimensions but displayed no concurrent CP ( Psychopathic Personality Only ) and CP youth with low levels of psychopathic traits ( CP Only ). Youth with CP who merely manifested callous-unemotional traits ( Callous-Unemotional + CP ) were only at risk for future CP. The findings suggest that the CU traits-based approach for subtyping children with CP is less informative compared to a subtyping approach using various psychopathic traits dimensions in predicting future and stable forms of various antisocial outcomes. These findings and their consistency with prior work indicate the need for additional research to examine the various psychopathic traits dimensions rather than focusing solely on CU traits, especially for CP subtyping purposes., Competing Interests: Compliance with Ethical StandardsCyprus Ministry of Education and Cyprus Bioethics committee. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.Henrik Andershed, Olivier F. Colins, Randall T. Salekin, Alexandros Lordos, Melina Nicole Kyranides, and Kostas A. Fanti declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Background: Research on the topic of child psychopathy has advanced over the past decade increasing what we know., Method: This qualitative review examines the research base for child psychopathy and emphasizes its three dimensions: grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, and daring-impulsive. Literature is reviewed addressing the cognitive, emotional, motivational, personality, parenting, and biological correlates., Results: Support has emerged for the phenotypic construct of child psychopathy, while questions remain regarding definitional issues and key external correlates (e.g., reward and punishment processing, parenting, molecular genetics, brain imaging)., Conclusions: While the construct appears to be valid, future work should broaden its focus from callous unemotional traits to all three dimensions of the construct, enhance measurement precision, and examine dimension interactions. Such research could have important implications for CD specification for future versions of the DSM and ICD and speed etiological knowledge and clinical care for youth with conduct problems., (© 2017 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)

Prior studies have shown that the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI) holds promise as a self-report tool for assessing psychopathic traits in detained adolescents. However, these studies have been conducted in a research context where anonymity and confidentiality are provided. Few studies have examined the usefulness of the YPI in clinical settings. To address this research gap, the present study examined data from 1,559 detained boys who completed the YPI as part of a clinical protocol. Official criminal records were available for a subsample (n = 848), allowing us to test the prognostic usefulness of the YPI. Results of confirmatory factor analyses, overall, support the proposed 3-factor structure, though model fit indices were not as good in Dutch boys compared to boys from other ethnic groups. Measurement invariance tests showed that the YPI scores are manifested in the same way across all 4 ethnic groups and suggest that means scores between the 4 ethnic groups are comparable. The YPI scores were internally consistent, and correlations with external variables, including aggression and conduct problems, support the convergent validity of the interpretation of YPI scores. Finally, results demonstrated that YPI scores were not significantly positively related to future criminality. In conclusion, this study suggests that the YPI may hold promise as a self-report tool for assessing psychopathic traits in detained male adolescents during a clinical protocol. However, the finding that the YPI did not predict future offending suggests that this tool should not yet be used for risk assessment purposes in forensic settings. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).)

This study aimed to identify distinct subgroups of adults in a general population sample (N = 2,500; 52.6% females) based on their scores on three psychopathy dimensions. Using latent profile analysis, five groups were identified among males and females separately, including a psychopathic personality group. Multivariate analyses of variance showed that this latter group had higher levels of aggression, offending, substance use, attention-deficit/hyperactivity symptoms, internalizing problems, and maltreatment than most of the other groups. Associated features of males and females with a psychopathic personality were very similar; however, salient gender differences did emerge. Specifically, females with a psychopathic personality were more frequently exposed to sexual abuse, expressed more emotional difficulties, and engaged in higher levels of relational aggression. In conclusion, person-oriented analyses identified adults with a personality that looks like psychopathy, and furthered our understanding of gender similarities and differences in these adults.

Psychopathy is often associated with heightened intelligence in the eyes of clinicians and laypersons despite mixed research support for this possibility. We adopted a fine-grained approach to studying the relations among psychopathy and multiple indices of intelligence, including both cognitively based intelligence (CBI) and emotional intelligence (EI), in a large sample of undergraduates (N = 1,257, 70% female, 82% Caucasian). We found no clear support for marked associations between psychopathy and CB I measures, with the magnitudes of these relations being small. With the exception of the dimensions of Fearless Dominance (FD) and Coldheartedness (C), psychopathy dimensions were negatively associated with (EI). In contrast, we found some support for the hypothesis that intelligence served as a protective factor against antisocial behavior among individuals with high levels of psychopathy. On balance, our findings show weak relations between psychopathy and intelligence, suggesting that the link between them may be less robust than theoretical models portray, at least among undergraduates. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).)

Callous unemotional traits have been incorporated into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5) and are being considered for the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision (ICD-11). Despite the centrality of callous-unemotional (CU) traits it is only 1 of 3 dimensions of child psychopathy. It is proposed that the grandiose-manipulative (GM) and daring-impulsive (DI) traits also be considered and potentially incorporated as specifiers for conduct disorder (CD) in future versions of the DSM and ICD. Such an addition would make a larger contribution to our understanding of youth with CD allowing clinicians to better describe and treat individuals with conduct problems (CP). However, before such specifiers are adopted, future research is needed to test the proposed specifiers interaction with CD., ((c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).)