Murrie Daniel C, Marcus David K, Douglas Kevin S, Lee Zina, Salekin Randall T, Vincent Gina
Sam Houston State University, USA.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2007 Jul;48(7):714-23. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01734.x.
Recently, researchers have sought to measure psychopathy-like features among youth in hopes of identifying children who may be progressing toward a particularly destructive form of adult pathology. However, it remains unclear whether psychopathy-like personality features among youth are best conceptualized as dimensional (distributed along a continuum) or taxonic (such that youth with psychopathic personality characteristics are qualitatively distinct from non-psychopathic youth).
This study applied taxometric analyses (MAMBAC, MAXEIG, and L-Mode) to scores from two primary measures of youth psychopathy features: the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (N = 757) and the self-report Antisocial Process Screening Device (N = 489) among delinquent boys.
All analyses supported a dimensional structure, indicating that psychopathy features among youth are best understood as existing along a continuum.
Although youth clearly vary in the degree to which they manifest psychopathy-like personality traits, there is no natural, discrete class of young 'psychopaths.' This finding has implications for developmental theory, treatment, assessment strategies, research, and clinical/forensic practice.
最近，研究人员试图测量青少年中类似精神病态的特征，以期识别出可能正朝着一种特别具有破坏性的成人病态形式发展的儿童。然而，青少年中类似精神病态的人格特征究竟最好被概念化为维度性的（沿连续体分布）还是类属型的（即具有精神病态人格特征的青少年在质上有别于非精神病态青少年）仍不清楚。
本研究将分类分析（MAMBAC、MAXEIG和L模式）应用于青少年精神病态特征的两项主要测量指标的得分：《精神病态量表：青少年版》（N = 757）和违法男孩中的自我报告反社会过程筛查工具（N = 489）。
所有分析均支持维度结构，表明青少年中的精神病态特征最好理解为沿连续体存在。
尽管青少年在表现出类似精神病态人格特质的程度上显然存在差异，但不存在天然的、离散的年轻“精神病患者”类别。这一发现对发展理论、治疗、评估策略、研究以及临床/法医实践均有影响。
