Examining the Factor Structure of the Self-Report of Psychopathy Short-Form Across Four Young Adult Samples. (December 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dotterer, Hailey L.; Waller, Rebecca; Neumann, Craig S.; Shaw, Daniel S.; Forbes, Erika E.; Hariri, Ahmad R.; Hyde, Luke W.
• Is Part Of: Assessment. Volume 24:Number 8(2017)
• Page Start: 1062
• Page End: 1079
• Publication Date: 2017-12
• Subjects: psychometric -- antisocial behavior -- invariance -- gender -- sample -- bifactor; Psychological tests -- Periodicals; Psychodiagnostics -- Periodicals; Personality tests -- Periodicals; 150.287
• DOI: 10.1177/1073191116640355
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1073-1911

Abstract

Psychopathy refers to a range of complex behaviors and personality traits, including callousness and antisocial behavior, typically studied in criminal populations. Recent studies have used self-reports to examine psychopathic traits among noncriminal samples. The goal of the current study was to examine the underlying factor structure of the Self-Report of Psychopathy Scale–Short Form (SRP-SF) across complementary samples and examine the impact of gender on factor structure. We examined the structure of the SRP-SF among 2, 554 young adults from three undergraduate samples and a high-risk young adult sample. Using confirmatory factor analysis, a four-correlated factor model and a four-bifactor model showed good fit to the data. Evidence of weak invariance was found for both models across gender. These findings highlight that the SRP-SF is a useful measure of low-level psychopathic traits in noncriminal samples, although the underlying factor structure may not fully translate across men and women.