Can the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality Be Used to Measure the Triarchic Model Constructs of Boldness, Meanness, and Disinhibition? A Scale Derivation Study.

Can the components of the triarchic model of psychopathy (i.e., boldness, meanness, disinhibition) be operationalized using the item pool comprising the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP) model? To address this question, the authors first derived CAPP-based triarchic scales using standard item-selection procedures and then examined the external correlates of these provisional scales in three archival data sets: (a) U.S. jail inmates administered the institutional rating scale version of the CAPP and (b and c) prototypicality ratings of the CAPP traits provided by Swedish forensic mental health professionals and U.S. probation officers. Although most research on triarchic constructs has relied exclusively on self-report inventories, the results suggest that the CAPP model can be reorganized to reflect boldness, meanness, and disinhibition and that its institutional rating scale items can effectively quantify these constructs using interview and file review data. Implications for future research on the measurement and assessment of psychopathic traits are discussed.

Triarchic psychopathy and deficits in facial affect recognition.

OBJECTIVE: Impaired socialization due to amygdala dysfunction has been proposed as a factor underlying psychopathy. Supporting this hypothesis, some research indicates that psychopathy is associated with deficits in facial affect recognition, but other studies have failed to find such a relationship. This study investigated whether healthy young adults elevated in psychopathic traits displayed deficits in identifying facial affective displays overall as well as deficits specific to fear recognition. METHOD: Facial affect recognition was measured in a sample of 110 undergraduate men (n = 36) and women (n = 74). Participants completed the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure, and participants' eye gaze was measured using ASL Eye Trac 6. The facial affect recognition task was created using the NimStim facial expression stimuli. RESULTS: Individuals elevated in psychopathic traits did not display deficits in recognition of emotional faces overall or for fearful faces compared to individuals lower in psychopathic traits. However, meanness was negatively correlated with fear identification. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that deficient emotion processing in psychopathic individuals may be specific to ambiguous affective expressions. We discuss implications for the study of psychopathy and emotion processing.

Dangerous, depraved, and death-worthy: A meta-analysis of the correlates of perceived psychopathy in jury simulation studies.

OBJECTIVES: Experimental research suggests that legal defendants described as psychopathic are generally, although not uniformly, judged more negatively and punitively. Understanding the correlates of perceived psychopathy, regardless of exposure to mental health evidence, is an important step towards clarifying divergent findings. METHOD: We conducted a quantitative synthesis of ten juror simulation studies (combined N = 2,980) examining the meta-analytic association between perceived defendant psychopathy and various psychologically important and legally relevant outcomes. RESULTS: Perceiving someone as being more psychopathic was associated with viewing that defendant as more dangerous (r W = 0.31) and evil ( r W = 0.44). Moreover, perceptions of defendant psychopathy predicted greater support for more adverse consequences in terms of capital sentencing ( r W = 0.22) and sentence length ( r W = 0.27), although not perceived treatment amenability ( r W = 0.09). CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight the importance of including ratings of perceived psychopathy in experimental designs to identify the circumstances under which psychopathy evidence might prejudicially impact case outcomes.

Self- and informant perceptions of psychopathic traits in relation to the triarchic model.

OBJECTIVE: The validity of self-report psychopathy measures may be undermined by characteristics thought to be defining features of the construct, including poor self-awareness, pathological lying, and impression management. The current study examined agreement between self- and informant perceptions of psychopathic traits captured by the triarchic model (Patrick, Fowler, & Krueger, 2009) and the extent to which psychopathic traits are associated with socially desirable responding. METHOD: Participants were undergraduate roommate dyads (N = 174; Mage = 18.9 years; 64.4% female; 59.8% Caucasian) who completed self- and informant reports of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. RESULTS: Self-reports of psychopathic traits reasonably aligned with the perceptions of informants (rs = .36-.60), and both predicted various types of antisocial behaviors, although some associations were only significant for monomethod correlations. Participants viewed by informants as more globally psychopathic did not engage in greater positive impression management. However, this response style significantly correlated with self- and informant-reported boldness, suppressing associations with antisocial behavior. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that participants are willing and able to disclose psychopathic personality traits in research settings under conditions of confidentiality. Nonetheless, accounting for response style is potentially useful when using self-report measures to examine the nature and correlates of psychopathic traits.

Intentional inattention: Detecting feigned attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder on the Personality Assessment Inventory.

Given the increasing number of college students seeking Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnoses as well as the potential secondary gains associated with this disorder (e.g., access to stimulant medication, academic accommodations), the detection of malingered symptom presentations in this population is a major concern. The present study examined the ability of validity indicators on the widely used Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) to distinguish between individuals experiencing genuine ADHD symptoms and individuals instructed to present with ADHD symptomatology for secondary gain. Sixty-six participants who successfully simulated ADHD (based on elevations on the Conners' Adult ADHD Rating Scale; Conners, Erhardt, & Sparrow, 1998) were compared with a sample of undergraduate students meeting diagnostic criteria for ADHD (N = 22) and an archival sample of adults who received an ADHD diagnosis at a university psychology clinic following a comprehensive psychological evaluation (N = 41). Successful simulators obtained significantly higher scores on all relevant PAI validity indicators compared with the clinical and archival comparison samples, with the Rogers Discriminant Function demonstrating the highest predictive accuracy (AUC = .86). Traditional cut scores on the Negative Impression (NIM) validity scale used to designate probable malingering, however, were not sensitive to simulated ADHD symptoms, although they did demonstrate excellent specificity. The PAI may be informative as an indicator of potentially exaggerated or malingered symptom presentation, but alternative cut scores for symptom validity indicators may be necessary to maximize its utility in these particular types of psychological evaluations. (PsycINFO Database Record

"A Psychopath by Any Other Name?": Juror Perceptions of the DSM-5 "Limited Prosocial Emotions" Specifier.

DSM-5 recently added the specifier "Limited Prosocial Emotions" (LPE) to the Conduct Disorder (CD) diagnosis, yet little is known about how these traits will affect attitudes toward CD youth. Laypersons attending jury duty (N = 326) were randomly assigned to one of four case vignette conditions in which a male juvenile offender was identified as having (a) CD symptoms only, (b) CD symptoms plus a diagnostic label, (c) CD symptoms plus a diagnostic label and description of LPE traits, or (d) CD symptoms plus a description of LPE traits and a "psychopath" label. LPE traits led to more negative perceptions of the youth (e.g., more dangerous, evil, and psychopathic) and adding the psychopath label to the LPE specifier resulted in somewhat stronger support for punishment and mandated treatment. The LPE specifier may provide useful diagnostic information, but these findings raise serious concerns that it will stigmatize youth in the legal system.

Development of an Inconsistent Responding Scale for the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure.

Inconsistent or careless responding to self-report measures is estimated to occur in approximately 10% of university research participants and may be even more common among offender populations. Inconsistent responding may be a result of a number of factors including inattentiveness, reading or comprehension difficulties, and cognitive impairment. Many stand-alone personality scales used in applied and research settings, however, do not include validity indicators to help identify inattentive response patterns. Using multiple archival samples, the current study describes the development of an inconsistent responding scale for the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM; Patrick, 2010), a widely used self-report measure of psychopathy. We first identified pairs of correlated TriPM items in a derivation sample (N = 2,138) and then created a total score based on the sum of the absolute value of the differences for each item pair. The resulting scale, the Triarchic Assessment Procedure for Inconsistent Responding (TAPIR), strongly differentiated between genuine TriPM protocols and randomly generated TriPM data (N = 1,000), as well as between genuine protocols and those in which 50% of the original data were replaced with random item responses. TAPIR scores demonstrated fairly consistent patterns of association with some theoretically relevant correlates (e.g., inconsistency scales embedded in other personality inventories), although not others (e.g., measures of conscientiousness) across our cross-validation samples. Tentative TAPIR cut scores that may discriminate between attentively and carelessly completed protocols are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record

Effects of Mental Health and Neuroscience Evidence on Juror Perceptions of a Criminal Defendant: the Moderating Role of Political Orientation.

Several recent studies have examined the effects of mental health and neuroscientific evidence on attitudes toward criminal defendants, suggesting that these factors may influence juror decision-making in meaningful ways. Few studies to date have manipulated both of these variables while also considering theoretically important individual difference variables (e.g., political orientation). Using a criminal case simulation, this study manipulated the presence of evidence concerning mental disorders (psychopathy and schizophrenia) and increasing levels of neuroscientific detail regarding a defendant's brain injury, and examined verdicts and sentencing recommendations in over 400 persons attending jury duty. Main effects were detected for mental health testimony and political orientation, although interactions were noted as well. More negative reactions to defendants labeled as psychopaths were relatively consistent, whereas participants who identified as liberal generally were less punitive towards a defendant identified as schizophrenic than were more conservative jurors. Consistent with other recent research, juror perceptions of the defendant's level of psychopathic traits (independent of the effects of the experimental manipulations) predicted guilty verdicts and longer sentencing recommendations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Application of Regulatory Focus Theory to Search Advertising.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to test the utility of regulatory focus theory principles in a real-world setting; specifically, Internet hosted text advertisements. Effect of compatibility of the ad text with the regulatory focus of the consumer was examined. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Advertisements were created using Google AdWords. Data were collected for the number of views and clicks each ad received. Effect of regulatory fit was measured using logistic regression. FINDINGS: Logistic regression analyses demonstrated that there was a strong main effect for keyword, such that users were almost six times as likely to click on a promotion advertisement as a prevention advertisement, as well as a main effect for compatibility, such that users were twice as likely to click on an advertisement with content that was consistent with their keyword. Finally, there was a strong interaction of these two variables, such that the effect of consistent advertisements was stronger for promotion searches than for prevention searches. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: The effect of ad compatibility had medium to large effect sizes, suggesting that individuals' state may have more influence on advertising response than do individuals' traits (e.g. personality traits). Measurement of regulatory fit was limited by the constraints of Google AdWords. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The results of this study provide a possible framework for ad creation for Internet advertisers. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This paper is the first study to demonstrate the utility of regulatory focus theory in online advertising.