Swogger Marc T, Kosson David S
Department of Psychology, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, North Chicago, Illinois.
Crim Justice Behav. 2007;34(8):953-970. doi: 10.1177/0093854807300758.
Psychopathy is an important construct in offender classification. Although several studies have suggested that there are two distinct subtypes of psychopaths, these studies have considerable limitations, including reliance on self-report measures, a failure to adequately address heterogeneity within the construct of psychopathy, and predictor-criterion contamination. A recent taxonomic study identified four subgroups of offenders, including primary and secondary psychopaths. We used cluster analysis to replicate and extend those findings to: 1) an independent sample; and 2) a PCL-R factor model that reduces predictor-criterion contamination. Additionally, we validated initial results using a novel clustering method. Results show that psychopathy subtypes are replicable across methods. Moreover, comparisons on other variables provide external validation of the subtypes consistent with prior theoretical conceptualizations.
精神病态是罪犯分类中的一个重要概念。尽管有几项研究表明存在两种不同的精神病态亚型，但这些研究存在相当大的局限性，包括依赖自我报告测量方法、未能充分解决精神病态概念中的异质性问题以及预测指标与标准的相互影响。最近的一项分类学研究确定了四类罪犯群体，包括原发性和继发性精神病态者。我们使用聚类分析来复制并扩展这些发现，以应用于：1）一个独立样本；以及2）一个减少预测指标与标准相互影响的PCL-R因素模型。此外，我们使用一种新颖的聚类方法对初步结果进行了验证。结果表明，精神病态亚型在不同方法之间具有可重复性。此外，对其他变量的比较为这些亚型提供了与先前理论概念一致的外部验证。
