Psychopathy, Violence Risk Assessment, and the Personality

Assessment Inventory (PAI)Mark Hastings, Jeff Stuewig, Amy Drapalski, & June TangneyGeorge Mason UniversityAmerican Society of Criminology Annual MeetingNovember 20, 2003Denver, CO

Psychopathy: What is it?

Personality disorder with specific affective, interpersonal, and behavioral features.

– Affective features: Shallow emotions, lacks empathy, guilt, and remorse, and doesn’t accept responsibility.

– Interpersonal features: Glib/Charming, manipulative, deceitful, grandiose sense of self-worth.

– Behavioral features: Impulsive, irresponsible, parasitic, poor behavioral controls, criminal behavior.

Not synonymous with Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD)

Psychopathy & APD

`

Psychopaths

(15 – 25%)

APD(50% - 80%)

AllOffenders

(100%)

Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV)

12-item checklist, semi-structured interview (Hart, Cox & Hare, 1995)

Total score, Part 1 score, and Part 2 score

Total Score: Range 0-24. – 0-12= non-psychopathic, low psychopathy – 13-17= may be psychopathic, moderate psychopathy – 18+=usually psychopathic

Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV)

Screening for PCL-R psychopathy:– Moderate false positive rate– Low false negative rate

Highly correlated with the PCL-R (.80-.85)

Psychopathy is a strong predictor of general, violent, and sexual recividism

(Hemphill, Hare, & Wong, 1998; Rice & Harris, 1997; Tengstrum et al., 2000)

Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG)

12-item actuarial risk instrument developed for the prediction of violent recidivism among offenders and mentally disordered offenders (Harris, Rice, & Quinsey, 1993).

VRAG has also proven to be a strong predictor of violent, including sexual, recividism (Harris, Rice, & Quinsey, 1993; Harris, Rice, Quinsey, Lalumiere, Boer, & Lang, 2003; Rice & Harris, 1997)

Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG): 12 items

Lived with Both Biological Parents till age 16

Elementary School Maladjustment (K-8th)

History of Alcohol Problems

Marital Status Nonviolent Criminal

History

Failure on Prior Conditional Release

Age at Index Offense Victim Injury Female Victim Personality Disorder Schizophrenia Psychopathy (PCL-R)

Personality Assessment Inventory(PAI)

Self-report personality inventory consisting of 344 items comprising 22 full scales (4 validity, 11 clinical, 5 treatment, 2 interpersonal).

Fourth-grade reading level makes test good choice for use with inmate samples.

Test has number of scales and indices that measure antisocial character (ANT), aggression (AGG), and violence potential (VPI).

Personality Assessment Inventory(PAI)

Violence Potential Index (VPI) - Comprised of 20 features congruent with research on prediction of dangerousness.

Items include explosive expression of anger, limited empathy, impulsivity, alcohol/drug use, sensation seeking, history of antisocial behavior, anger directed outward, etc..

Moderate and marked risk of violent behavior begins at scores of 9 and 17 respectively.

Questions

Can the PAI measure psychopathy?

Can the PAI be used to identify inmates with a history of violence?

Does the PAI perform these tasks as well as the PCL:SV and VRAG?

Results: PCL:SV & VRAG Correlations

PCL:SV PCL:SVScale/Scale Part 1 Part 2 VRAGPCL:SV Part 1 - .467** .551**

PCL:SV Part 2 .467** - .708**

PCL:SV Total .863** .850** .732**

N=173; ** = .000 sign. (2-tailed)

Results: PAI, PCL:SV, & VRAG Correlations

PCL:SV PCL:SV PCL:SVScale/Scale Part 1 Part 2 Total VRAGAntisocial (ANT) .334** .522** .496** .518**

Aggression (AGG) .273** .552** .476** .476**

Violence Potential .300** .468** .446** .456**Index (VPI)

N=168; ** = .000 sign. (2-tailed)

Violence Prediction: Correlations

Violence ViolenceViolence

(formal) (informal) (comb)

PCL:SV Part 1 .193* .264** .296**PCL:SV Part 2 .296** .488** .507**PCL:SV Total .287** .437** .469**VRAG .170 .381** .356**Violence Potential .143 .335** .307**

Index (VPI)

N=116; * = .05 sign. (2-tailed); ** = .005 sign (2-tailed)

Violence Prediction: t-test for Dependent Correlations

Measures t-score p (2-tailed)

PCL:SV & VRAG 1.71 .0907 n.s.

VRAG & VPI .46 .6449 n.s.

PCL:SV & VPI 1.69 .0935 n.s.

Violence Prediction: PCL:SV Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC)

ROC area of .770 (n=116, p < .05)

ROC Curve

Diagonal segments are produced by ties.

1 - Specificity

1.00.75.50.250.00

Se

nsi

tivity

1.00

.75

.50

.25

0.00

Violence Prediction: VRAG Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC)

ROC area of .732 (n=116, p < .05)

ROC Curve

Diagonal segments are produced by ties.

1 - Specificity

1.00.75.50.250.00

Se

nsi

tivity

1.00

.75

.50

.25

0.00

Violence Prediction: VPI Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC)

ROC area of .693 (n=116, p < .05)

ROC Curve

Diagonal segments are produced by ties.

1 - Specificity

1.00.75.50.250.00

Se

nsi

tivity

1.00

.75

.50

.25

0.00

Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) for PCL:SV, VRAG, & PAI

ROC areaPCL:SV Total .770PCL:SV Part 1 .679PCL:SV Part 2 .785VRAG .732PAI (VPI) .693PAI (ANT) .649PAI (AGG) .741PAI (AGG-P) .794

Conclusions

Can the PAI measure psychopathy? Yes, the Antisocial (ANT) scale, Aggression (AGG)

scale, and Violence Potential Index (VPI) all showed moderate correlation with psychopathy as measured by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV). However, the ability of the PAI to measure the interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy (i.e., Part 1) is more limited.

Conclusions

Can the PAI be used to identify inmates with a history of violence?

Yes, the Violence Potential Index (VPI) demonstrated moderate ability to predict history of violence when “informal” acts of violence were included.

Conclusions

Does the PAI perform these tasks as well as the PCL:SV and VRAG?

Yes, the Violence Potential Index (VPI), Aggression (AGG) scale, and Aggression-Physical (AGG-P) subscale performed comparably with the VRAG and PCL:SV in terms of ability to identify inmates with a history of violence.

Future Directions

Cross-validation

Use of official records for measuring history of violence

Utility in predicting violent recidivism.