Concurrent Validity of The Psychopathic Personality Inventory–Revised and The Psychopathy Checklist

Abstract

The Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R) and derivatives, designed for use in offender samples, have proven psychometric properties but are resource intensive and difficult to use in nonincarcerated samples. The Psychopathic Personality Inventory–Revised (PPI-R) is a well-validated self-report measure, used in community samples, but there is limited data on its correspondence with the PCL-R. This study compared the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) and PPI-R in a sample of Australian prisoners (n = 48) to determine the correspondence between the measures in characterising psychopathy. We also conducted an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) of the PPI-R’s subscales. While strong relationships were found between the total scores of the two measures (r = .554), correspondence between the dimensions was poor. EFA did not support the two-factor solution. Our findings question the degree to which one can assume that these measures capture the same construct and highlight the need for further research delineating the PPI-R’s factor structure.