Identifying personality subtypes based on the five-factor model dimensions in male prisoners: implications for psychopathy and criminal offending.

The current study was designed to identify personality subtypes on the basis of the five-factor model dimensions in male prisoners. Participants included 110 Flemish male prisoners assessed by means of the Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness Five Factor Inventory and different symptom, personality, and coping measures. We found two clusters: an emotionally stable/resilient cluster and an aggressive/undercontrolled cluster. Prisoners within the aggressive/undercontrolled cluster scored significantly higher on almost all Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 basic scales, (in)direct aggression measures, and depressive coping scales compared with resilients. They also scored higher on drug abuse and committed more sexual offenses than resilient prisoners. These two personality subtypes bear theoretically and practically important implications for psychopathy subtypes and different pathways to criminal offenses.

The Inventory of Callous and Unemotional Traits: a construct-validational analysis in an at-risk sample.

The Inventory of Callous and Unemotional Traits (ICU), developed to assess callous/unemotional (CU) traits, has recently experienced increased attention in light of the proposal to add a CU specifier to the conduct disorder diagnosis in DSM-5. In a sample of 70 at-risk adolescents (ages 13-17 years) in the foster care system who received a contemplative intervention program, the present study placed the ICU within a nomological network of correlates, including anxiety, depression, hopefulness, loneliness, and physiological measures of stress (e.g., cortisol). The findings offered some support for the ICU's construct validity, including significant negative associations with measures of compassion toward others. Nevertheless, unexpected substantial positive correlations emerged with multiple measures of psychological distress, raising questions concerning other aspects of the ICU's construct validity. Taken together, results of the current study suggest that rather than assessing a dearth of all major emotions as implied by its name and some previous descriptions, the ICU may be heavily saturated with negative emotionality and global maladjustment.

Latent personality profiles and the relations with psychopathology and psychopathic traits in detained adolescents.

The present study constructed empirically derived subtypes of adolescent offenders based on general traits and examined their associations with psychopathology and psychopathic traits. The sample included 342 detained minors (172 boys and 170 girls; mean age 15.85 years, SD = 1.07) recruited in various Youth Detention Centers across the Flemish part of Belgium. All adolescents provided self-reports on the quick big five, the youth self report, and the youth psychopathic traits inventory to assess general traits, psychopathology, and psychopathic traits respectively. Latent class analyses based on general personality traits were performed and suggested three personality types, consisting of an emotionally labile, close-minded and goal-oriented class, an undercontrolled class, and an emotionally labile-careless class. These three personality types within detained minors showed particular constellations of general traits and differed meaningfully in terms of their mean-scores on externalizing psychopathology and psychopathy measures.

Assessing the affective features of psychopathy in adolescence: a further validation of the inventory of callous and unemotional traits.

To provide an extended assessment of the affective features of psychopathy, Frick developed the Inventory of Callous and Unemotional Traits (ICU), which is a multi-informant questionnaire. Previous studies have provided initial support for the self-report version. The aim of the present study is to investigate the validity of self- as well as other report versions of the ICU and examine associations with measures of psychopathic traits, empathy, antisocial behavior and prosocial attitudes, reward and punishment sensitivity, and personality traits in a Dutch community sample of 455 adolescents (56% males). The results of the present study replicate and extend previous findings on the psychometric properties and the validity of the ICU in a sample of nonreferred youth. The three ICU subscales showed distinctive patterns of associations with key external criteria. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.