Psychopathy Checklist
[2] The psychopath tends to display a constellation or combination of high narcissistic, borderline, and antisocial personality disorder traits, which includes superficial charm, charisma/attractiveness, sexual seductiveness and promiscuity, affective instability, suicidality, lack of empathy, feelings of emptiness, self-harm, and splitting (black and white thinking).
[4] The PCL was originally developed in the 1970s by Canadian psychologist Robert D. Hare[5] for use in psychology experiments, based partly on Hare's work with male offenders and forensic inmates in Vancouver, and partly on an influential clinical profile by American psychiatrist Hervey M. Cleckley first published in 1941.
An individual's score may have important consequences for their future, and because the potential for harm if the test is used or administered incorrectly is considerable, Hare argues that the test should be considered valid only if administered by a suitably qualified and experienced clinician under scientifically controlled and licensed, standardized conditions.
There is a high risk of recidivism and mostly small likelihood of rehabilitation for those who are labelled as having "psychopathy" on the basis of the PCL-R ratings in the manual for the test, although treatment research is ongoing.
Factor 1, the so-called core personality traits of psychopathy, may even be beneficial for the psychopath (in terms of nondeviant social functioning).
Factor 1 captures traits dealing with the interpersonal and affective deficits of psychopathy (e.g., shallow affect, superficial charm, manipulativeness, lack of empathy) whereas factor 2 deals with symptoms relating to antisocial behavior (e.g., criminal versatility, impulsiveness, irresponsibility, poor behavior controls, juvenile delinquency).
[20] In contrast, Factor 2 was found to be related to antisocial personality disorder, social deviance, sensation seeking, low socioeconomic status[17] and high risk of suicide.
[23] Hare and colleagues have criticized the Cooke and Michie three-factor model for statistical and conceptual problems, for example, for resulting in impossible parameter combinations (negative variances).
[25] In the four-factor model of psychopathy, supported by a range of samples, the factors represent the interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and overt antisocial features of the personality disorder.
[28] In controlled research environments the inter-rater reliability of the PCL-R may be satisfactory, but in real-world settings it has been found to have rather poor agreement between different raters, especially on the personality trait scores.
[32] Although Hare wanted the DSM-IV-TR to list psychopathy as a unique disorder,[33] the DSM editors were unconvinced and felt that there was too much room for subjectivity on the part of clinicians when identifying things like remorse and guilt; therefore, the DSM-IV panel decided to stick to observable behavior, namely socially deviant behaviors.
[43][44] PCL-R factor 1 is correlated to NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) and rarely ever commit suicide, although they may threaten to do so.
One leading forensic psychologist, while Deputy Chief at the Ministry of Justice, has argued that it has not lived up to claims that it could identify those who would not benefit from current treatments or those most likely to violently reoffend.
To the extent that it does perform better, it is unclear whether it is due to the PCL-R's inclusion of past offending history, rather than the personality trait scores that make it unique.
It alleged that the checklist is wrongly viewed by many as the basic definition of psychopathy, yet it leaves out key factors, while also making criminality too central to the concept.
It is also said to be vulnerable to "labeling effects", to be over-simplistic, reductionist, to embody fundamental attribution error, and not pay enough attention to context and the dynamic nature of human behavior.
One forensic researcher has suggested that future studies need to examine the class background, race, and philosophical beliefs of raters because they may not be aware of enacting biased judgments on people whom they do not readily empathize with.
