Psychopathy as a bipolar construct: Testing the risk-promotive status of the four psychopathy checklist-revised/screening version facet scores in six clinical samples

Abstract

This study tested the possibility that the four facets of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised/Screening Version (PCL-R/SV) serve as bipolar constructs in predicting future criminal justice outcomes. Organizing scores on the four facets (Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle, and Antisocial) into three categories-that is, lowest 25% of cases (best category), highest 25% of cases (worst category), and middle 50% of cases (intermediate category)-we tested bipolarity by crossing the three categories with a dichotomized crime/violence outcome and calculating both promotive (best category vs. worst + intermediate categories) and risk (worst category vs. best + intermediate categories) effects in six samples. Bipolarity was defined as the simultaneous presence of promotive (low scores predicting a good outcome) and risk (high scores predicting a poor outcome) effects for each PCL-R/SV facet in each sample. Odds ratios and the Cochrane-Armitage linear trend test revealed evidence of bipolarity in one of six samples for the Interpersonal facet, three of six samples for the Affective facet, five of six samples for the Lifestyle facet, and all six samples for the Antisocial facet. An item response theory analysis was then conducted, the results of which supported the facet-level findings from the odds ratio and Cochrane-Armitage analyses at the individual item level. These results provide modest (Affective facet) to moderately strong (Lifestyle and Antisocial facets) evidence of bipolarity in three of the four facets of the PCL-R/SV by showing that low scores are just as effective in predicting good criminal justice outcomes as high scores are in predicting poor criminal justice outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).