NCJ Number
95681
Journal
Personality and Individual Differences Volume: 5 Issue: 4 Dated: (1984) Pages: 389-396
Date Published
1984
Length
8 pages
Annotation
The abbreviated (15-item) version of Hare's Research Scale for the Assessment of Psychopathy (RSAP) was investigated in a sample of male admissions to Broadmoor Special Hospital (N=50), along with five MMPI measures relavant to psychopathy (Impulsivity, Sociability, Psychopathic Deviate, Anxiety and Sociopathy).
Abstract
Patients were assigned to one of four clinical diagnostic groups; Personality Disorder, Mixed (personality disorder with schizophrenia), Schizophrenia and Affective Disorder. Results indicated that while both psychopathic groups (Mixed and Personality Disorder) showed high scores on almost all RSAP items, the Affective Disorder group showed low scores on almost all items. Results of a discriminant function analysis indicated that Hare's RSAP was superior to the MMPI measures at discriminating between psychopaths and non-psychopaths. Use of the discriminant function to re-allocate patients to criterion groups showed a high hit rate (94%) for psychopathic patients but a hit rate of only 61% for non-psychopathic patients. Half of the schizophrenic patients were mis-allocated to the psychopathic group. The results support the idea of an affective deficit common to psychopaths and schizophrenics, but suggest the psychopaths additionally show a deficit which may be characterized by a lack of goal-directed behavior. (Author abstract)