Using existing self-report inventories to measure the psychopathic personality traits of Fearless Dominance and Impulsive Antisociality

Abstract

This paper describes the creation and initial validation of new self-report measures of the psychopathic traits of Fearless Dominance and Impulsive Antisociality. In Study 1 we created new measures of these traits from the item content of three existing personality inventories: the IPIP-NEO [Johnson, J. A. (2000). Developing a short form of the IPIP-NEO: A report to HGW Consulting. Unpublished manuscript. Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, DuBois, PA.], NEO PI-R [Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.], and HEXACO PI-R [Lee, K., & Ashton, M. C. (2004). Psychometric properties of the HEXACO personality inventory. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39, 329–358.]. Study 2 used confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate convergence across these new measures. Study 3 examined how strongly the HEXACO PI-R and IPIP-NEO measures converged with the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised [Lilienfeld, S. O. & Widows, M. R. (2005). Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised: Professional manual. Lutz, Fl: Psychological Assessment Resources.]. Finally, Study 4 assessed self-other convergence and associations with observable aggressive responses for the IPIP-NEO scales. These studies provide important information about the assessment of these psychopathic traits.