A taxometric analysis of the latent structure of psychopathy: Evidence for dimensionality.

2007/11/01 by Jean-Pierre Guay, Jean‐Pierre Guay, John Ruscio +2 · 361 citations
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Antisocial personality disorder #Artificial intelligence #Clinical psychology #Computer science #Consistency (knowledge bases) #Crime Patterns and Interventions #Developmental psychology #Impulsivity #Injury prevention #Medicine #Personality #Personality Disorders and Psychopathology #Poison control #Psychology #Psychopathy #Psychopathy Checklist #Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending #Social psychology

paper · doi:10.1037/0021-843x.116.4.701

published in Journal of Abnormal Psychology 116(4), 701-716 (American Psychological Association)

openalex publication_date 2007/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

The taxonomic status of psychopathy is controversial. Whereas some studies have found evidence that psychopathy, at least its antisocial component, is distributed as a taxon, others have found that both major components of psychopathy-callousness/unemotionality and impulsivity/antisocial behavior-appear to distribute as dimensions and show little evidence of taxonicity. In the present study, recent advances in taxometric analysis were added to P. Meehl's (1995) multiple consistency tests strategy for assessing taxonicity, and they were applied to Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (R. D. Hare, 2003) ratings of 4,865 offenders sampled from multiple forensic settings. The results indicated that both the individual components of psychopathy and their interface are distributed dimensionally. Both the implications of these results for research in psychopathy and the integration of these findings with previous taxometric studies of psychopathy are discussed.

Citations

• The Structure of Common Mental Disorders

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