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Abstract
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The current study aimed to identify meaningful subtypes of psychopathic traits among male offenders. A Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) based on the scores of the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale was performed in a large sample of Chinese male prisoners (N = 3375, M age = 36.03, SD = 9.50).
RESULTS of the LPA revealed the existence of four profiles: "moderate psychopathy group" (59.5%); "low psychopathy group" (19.5%); "high psychopathy-moderate callousness group" (14.7%); and "low psychopathy-high callousness group" (6.3%). Using the modified Bolck-Croon-Hagenaars (BCH) and categorical distal variable (DCAT) methods, we found that these profiles differed on multiple outcome variables including risk for recidivism, anxiety, depression, reactive aggression and proactive aggression. Overall, findings indicate that the variants of psychopathy found in western incarcerated populations could largely be generalized to the non-western populations, and for the first time suggest that a special profile with low total psychopathy but high callousness traits might exist among male offenders.
Using general strain theory (GST), this research aimed to develop and validate a self-reported measure of strains that may trigger white-collar offense.
The Chinese Public Official Strain Scale (CPOSS) was developed through three studies. Study 1 established the initial item pool through interviews with public officials convicted of economic corruption. Study 2 used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to explore the latent structure of CPOSS with offenders recruited from 21 prisons. Study 3 adopted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and item response theory (IRT) to assess the psychometric properties of CPOSS with a new sample of inmates from 39 prisons. In addition, the criterion validity of CPOSS was evaluated using the Social Responsibility Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale, and two dimensions from the Schwartz Value Survey.
All items were developed with high content validity using GST. EFA provides a four-factor structure consistent with typical strain sources of white-collar crime. CFA proved this four-factor model was robust. After filtering out indiscriminate items via IRT, the final 17-item version of CPOSS presented good internal reliability, and constructive and criterion validity.
The 17-item CPOSS shows good psychometric properties and can be used in future empirical studies on strain and white-collar crime.
Psychopathy is a multifaceted disorder of personality that gives rise to distinct profiles of scores across the interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and antisocial features of the disorder. The identification of distinct profiles of psychopathic traits is of practical importance as they help to distinguish between patients with distinct areas of risk and need.
We used latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify distinct profiles of psychopathic traits in female (N = 357) and male (N = 483) civil psychiatric patients.
Three latent profiles were identified that appeared similar in women and in men. These profiles were termed Callous Aggressive, Antisocial, and Low psychopathic traits. A fourth profile identified in men was termed Moderate psychopathic traits. These profiles were distinguishable in terms of internalizing and externalizing behaviors, thoughts and attempts at self-harm, violence, and normal range personality traits. Extending current knowledge, we showed that equivalent profiles in women and in men were nonetheless distinguishable in terms of their associated psychological characteristics.
Our results suggest that areas of risk and need vary between profiles of psychopathic traits, and that interventions should incorporate gender-specific features that account for between-gender variation.
Criminal social identity (CSI) is a factor for criminal behavior. CSI should therefore be a target of interventive strategies aiming to reduce the risk of re-offending. To date, there is limited knowledge on how CSI is expressed among individuals with different criminal histories, undermining the efforts to develop and target appropriate rehabilitative strategies. In the present investigation, network analysis was applied to model the pattern of relationships between different crime types and CSI. In total, eight networks were estimated among prisoners from the USA (n = 772), UK (n = 638), and Poland (n = 1591).
Results show different pathways between CSI scores and crime types across samples. CSI formed positive links with acquisitive crime among U.S. and Polish male prisoners. Homicide formed negative associations with CSI among male prisoners from the USA and Poland as well as U.S. female prisoners. Crimes for which an individual is likely to face social stigmatization were positively associated with CSI in U.S. females and UK males. It is anticipated that from these results, we will be able to build a better understanding of the structural relationships between different types of criminal activity and CSI, subsequently leading to more effective rehabilitation strategies.
It has been hypothesized that paraphilic coercive disorder (PCD) constitutes a distinct preference for coercion that can be discriminated from a preference for sadism. Despite the repeated rejections of PCD as an acceptable diagnosis, it continues to be used. In 2013 Knight and colleagues reviewed the evidence that had been proffered to support the admission of PCD to the DSM-5 as a distinct diagnosis and proposed an alternative model that considers PCD and sadism as levels on a single dimension, called the Agonistic Continuum. They provided factor analytic data to support their argument for the unidimensionality of the proposed continuum, taxometrics to explore whether the construct was distributed categorically, and Item Response Theory to explore the ordinal structure of the dimension.
The aim of the present study was to replicate the prior findings and to expand their analyses with latent profile analysis on 680 sexual offenders.
The results supported the viability of an Agonistic Continuum, challenging the hypothesis that PCD and sadism constitute distinct disorders and corroborating the reconceptualization of both paraphilic coercion and sadism.
This dimension suggests important changes in the conceptualization and measurement of the construct of sadism. Implications are discussed.
Language: en |