Validity of the Psychopathy Checklist

[David Baxter PhD]

Psychopath guru blocks critical article
Sunday, May 30, 2010

Will case affect credibility of PCL-R test in court?

Despite recent evidence that scores on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) vary widely in adversarial legal contexts depending on which party retained the evaluator, the test has become increasingly popular in forensic work. In Texas, indeed, Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) evaluators are required by statute to measure psychopathy; almost all use this test. It is not surprising that prosecutors find the PCL-R particularly attractive: Evidence of high psychopathy has a powerfully prejudicial impact on jurors deciding whether a capital case defendant or a convicted sex offender is at high risk for bad conduct in the future.

But a current effort by the instrument's author, Robert Hare, to suppress publication of a critical article in a leading scientific journal may paradoxically reduce the credibility of the construct of psychopathy in forensic contexts.

That's the opinion of two psychology-law leaders, psychologist Norman Poythress and attorney John Petrila of the University of South Florida (two authors of a leading forensic psychology text, Psychological Evaluations for the Courts), in a critical analysis of Dr. Hare's threat to sue the journal Psychological Assessment. The contested article, Is Criminal Behavior a Central Component of Psychopathy? Conceptual Directions for Resolving the Debate, is authored by prominent scholars Jennifer Skeem of UC Irvine and David Cooke of Glasgow University. The study remains unpublished.

"[T]he threat of litigation constitutes a serious threat to academic freedom and potentially to scientific progress," write Poythress and Petrila in the current issue of the International Journal of Forensic Mental Health. "Academic freedom rests on the premise that advances in science can only occur if scholars are permitted to pursue free competition among ideas. This assumes that scholars have the liberty to do their work free from limitations imposed by political or religious pressure or by economic reprisals."

According to Poythress and Petrila, after the critical article passed the peer-review process and was accepted for publication, Dr. Hare's lawyer sent a letter to the authors and the journal stating that Dr. Hare and his company would "have no choice but to seek financial damages from your publication and from the authors of the article, as well as a public retraction of the article" if it was published. The letter claimed that Skeem and Cooke's paper was "fraught with misrepresentations and other problems and a completely inaccurate summary of what amounts to [Hare's] life's work" and "deliberately fabricated or altered quotes of Dr. Hare, and substantially altered the sense of what Dr. Hare said in his previous publications."

In general, defamation claims must prove that a defendant made a false and defamatory statement that harmed the plaintiff's reputation. Truth is an absolute defense. Critical opinions are also protected from defamation actions, as are "fair comments" on matters of public interest.

In this case, the contents of Skeem and Cooke's contested article have not been made public. However, it is hard to see how critical analysis of a construct that is enjoying such unprecedented popularity and real-world impact would NOT be of public interest.

Poythress and Petrila express concern that defamation claims against opposing researchers, while traditionally rare, may be becoming more common, leading to a potentially chilling effect on both individual researchers and the broader scientific community. Like so-called SLAPPS -- Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation -- used by corporations and other special interest groups to impede public participation, even meritless defamation lawsuits extract heavy penalties in terms of lost time and money and emotional distress.

Judges have been critical of pretextual deployment of defamation lawsuits, Poythress and Petrila report; a judge in one case warned that "plaintiffs cannot, simply by filing suit and crying 'character assassination!,' silence those who hold divergent views, no matter how adverse those views may be to plaintiffs' interests. Scientific controversies must be settled by the methods of science rather than by the methods of litigation."

Potential negative effects of defamation threats against scientific researchers include:

1. Researchers avoid conducting critical research out of fear of lawsuits.
2. Academics decline to serve as volunteer peer reviewers for academic journals due to loss of anonymity in defamation suits.
3. Journal editors self-censor on controversial topics.

As Poythress and Petrila conclude:

Because publication of the article by Professors Skeem and Cooke has effectively been long delayed, if not ultimately suppressed, one clear impact of this threat to sue is that researchers who may have been willing to investigate alternative models of psychopathy that might have been derived from the Skeem and Cooke article are not able to do so, simply because the article is unavailable. Because science progresses, in part, both by confirming viable models and disconfirming nonviable ones, the suppression of information relevant to constructing candidate models for empirical evaluation can be viewed as impeding the progress of science….

It seems clear from our review that such threats strike at the heart of the peer review process, may have a chilling effect on the values at the core of academic freedom, and may potentially impede the scientific testing of various theories, models and products. In our view it is far better to debate such matters in peer review journals rather than cut off debate through threats of litigation.


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In court, meanwhile, the effects of Dr. Hare's threat may prove paradoxical. Attorneys whose clients could be prejudiced by introduction of the Psychopathy Checklist may be able to discredit the instrument by pointing to the suppression of critical literature about the underlying construct of psychopathy.

The full article is PCL-R Psychopathy: Threats to Sue, Peer Review, and Potential Implications for Science and Law. A Commentary, by Norman Poythress and John P. Petrila, in the current issue of the International Journal of Forensic Mental Health. The abstract is available HERE; the full article requires a subscription.

Related:

• "The Dark Side of Peer Review," by Stephen D. Hart, also in the current issue of the International Journal of Forensic Mental Health (abstract HERE
• "Does interrater (dis)agreement on Psychopathy Checklist scores in Sexually Violent Predator trials suggest partisan allegiance in forensic evaluations?" by Murrie, D.C., Boccaccini, M.T., Johnson, J.T., & Janke, C. (2008). Law & Human Behavior, 32, 352-362 (abstract HERE

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Re: Questions raised about the validity of the Psychopathy Checklist

I have been arguing pretty much the same thing for years. The PCL does not measure psychopathy. It attempts to do so but fails. What it measures is criminal propensity, not the same thing at all but something probably more closely resembling the criteria for the DSM-IV-TR Antisocial Personality Disorder diagnosis.

The problem in essence is this:

1. The PCL-R breaks down into two factors. Factor 1, which attempts to measure the "core personality features" of psychopathy (basically along the lines of Cleckley's criteria); and Factor 2, which measures criminal behavior and criminal personality.
2. Factor 1 is a weak factor in terms of predictive validity, interrater reliability, etc. Thus, the part of the PCL which tries to measure the essence of psychopathy is pretty much a failure.
3. Factor 2, which is heavily influenced by historical data regarding past antisocial and criminal behavior, is much stronger, both in terms of predicting future criminal behavior (not surprisingly, given that all things being equal the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior) and in terms of interrater reliability.

This is not exhaustive: There are other problems with the PCL-R. But this is the fundamental problem with the scale in a nutshell.

Conclusion: The PCL-R is a measure of antisocial/criminal potential and/or "criminal personality". It is decidedly NOT a very good measure of psychopathy. Scoring high on the PCL-R does NOT make an individual a psychopath.

Now, of course Dr. Hare is going to object to the publication of additional data pointing this out. He has made his reputation on the PCL-R and, additionally, has a financial interest in its propagation and popularity.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Re: Questions raised about the validity of the Psychopathy Checklist

Psychopath researcher threatens to sue critics
by Vaughan, MindHacks
May 31, 2010

Robert Hare is a psychologist who studies psychopaths and is best known for developing the "Hare Psychopathy Checklist" or PCL-R, a standard diagnostic tool for assessing offenders. He is currently threatening to sue two psychologists who wrote an article critical of the theory underlying the checklist, as well as the academic journal, Psychological Assessment, that accepted the piece for publication after it was peer-reviewed.

There's an account of the affair over at the excellent forensic psychology blog, In the News, who notes that the article was authored by respected researchers Jennifer Skeem and David Cooke and was titled Is Criminal Behavior a Central Component of Psychopathy? Conceptual Directions for Resolving the Debate. As a result of the legal threat the article has never come to light.

The letter from Hare's lawyers apparently claimed that the he would:

"have no choice but to seek financial damages from your publication and from the authors of the article, as well as a public retraction of the article" if it was published. The letter claimed that Skeem and Cooke's paper was "fraught with misrepresentations and other problems and a completely inaccurate summary of what amounts to [Hare's] life's work" and "deliberately fabricated or altered quotes of Dr. Hare, and substantially altered the sense of what Dr. Hare said in his previous publications."


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It's probably worth noting that the PCL-R is big business. At current prices, each assessor who uses the checklist needs their own copy of the manual ($123) and the rating booklet ($68.50) and each individual assessment requires an interview guide at $5 each and a scoring form at about $3 each.

However, to use the assessment, each person needs to attend a training workshop at about $350 per person and workshops can easily involve 100 people at a time. Additionally, there is a follow-up correspondence course, price unspecified.

Because the assessments are used in the legal system, it is important that no-one (like an opposing lawyer in court) can find fault in the process and attending the 'official' training from the PCL-R company is considered the gold standard.

Recently, the affair has caught the attention of two lawyers and legal scholars who have just published their own analysis of the situation in the International Journal of Forensic Mental Health.

They express regret that Hare has chosen to use legal threats to counter his critics rather than to refute any points he felt were unfair in print himself, but also note that his strategy may actually undermine the usefulness of the PCL-R in court as opposing lawyers "may attempt to discredit that testimony by arguing that the literature relevant to evaluating the PCL-R has been tainted".

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Re: Questions raised about the validity of the Psychopathy Checklist

More coverage of psychopathy censorship controversy
Tuesday, June 1, 2010

The controversy over Robert Hare's attempt to block publication of a peer-reviewed article critical of his psychopathy construct is getting more attention since Sunday's blog post.

Among the online coverage:

• The Chronicle of Higher Education has a brief report.
• The ever-excellent Mind Hacks blog has a report and critical commentary, later reposted on Psydir News.
• Intellectual Competence and the Death Penalty gives it a nod.
• And they're even blogging about it over in Germany!

Overwhelmingly, opinion is that Dr. Hare shot himself in the foot by threatening legal action against the researchers and the journal. Hopefully, this debacle will serve as a cautionary tale for others whose research undergoes critical scrutiny due to forensic or other public-policy implications.

 

[Tom Michael]

Re: Questions raised about the validity of the Psychopathy Checklist

Hi Dr Baxter,

Assuming that your critique of the PCL-R is correct (I am familiar with the PCL-R, but not the literature critiquing it) and that the PCL-R does not measure psychopathy very well, my question to you is what does measure psychopathy well?

I appreciate that the PCL factor 2 list is a reasonable approximation of antisocial personality disorder, and that its useful and predictive of reoffending. I'm sure I've read somewhere that Hare claims that there are three personality types measured by his scale:

High Factor 1's only: The successful psychopath, who is selfish and callous but behaviourally controlled
High Factor 2's only: The antisocial individual, who is not actually psychopathic, but may be criminal and will likely meet the criteria for ASPD.
High in both factors: Criminal psychopath, most likely incarcerated.

I appreciate that other researchers have suggested a 3 factor analysis of the PCL - suggesting selfishness, narcissism and criminality.

Just to repeat though, if factor 1 is invalid or lacks inter-rater reliability, what does measure psychopathy?

Also, might factor 1 lack validity precisely because it is a personality scale, and psychopaths tend to lie about such things? In contrast, factor 2 is about lifestyle, for which the evidence can't be denied.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Re: Questions raised about the validity of the Psychopathy Checklist

Assuming that your critique of the PCL-R is correct (I am familiar with the PCL-R, but not the literature critiquing it) and that the PCL-R does not measure psychopathy very well, my question to you is what does measure psychopathy well?

I don't know of a psychometric test which even comes close. That was why there was initial excitement and enthusiasm about the PCL (similarly to the initial enthusiasm and susbsequent disappointment with the MCMI for personality disorders in general). It would be nice to have a valid instrument to "diagnose" psychopathy. To date, we don't have one.

I appreciate that the PCL factor 2 list is a reasonable approximation of antisocial personality disorder, and that its useful and predictive of reoffending. I'm sure I've read somewhere that Hare claims that there are three personality types measured by his scale:

High Factor 1's only: The successful psychopath, who is selfish and callous but behaviourally controlled
High Factor 2's only: The antisocial individual, who is not actually psychopathic, but may be criminal and will likely meet the criteria for ASPD.
High in both factors: Criminal psychopath, most likely incarcerated.

That's all rather circular, though. First, the validity of Factor 1 is, as I've stated, poor, so high Factor 1 scores don't really mean anything at all, or they may mean any number of other things besides psychopathy. Second, Factor 2 does measure criminality - not very surprising since it is based on the presence or absence of a history of criminal antisocial acts. But really what does it tell us that we don't already know from looking at criminal record?

Also, might factor 1 lack validity precisely because it is a personality scale, and psychopaths tend to lie about such things? In contrast, factor 2 is about lifestyle, for which the evidence can't be denied.

I don't think lying is the problem - that's a problem for any scale and any population, but it is possible to construct scales with (a) validity scales to detect lying and (b) low transparency or face validity. Additionally, the PCL is a rating scale rather than an objective or self-report test.

Rather, the problem with the PCL, especially Factor 1, is that it's a poorly constructed scale with high face validity but poor interrater reliability and poor predictive validity.

 

[Tom Michael]

Re: Questions raised about the validity of the Psychopathy Checklist

Thanks for your reply David. My work is mainly to do with frontal lobe brain injury, but I have an interest in psychopathy due to the similarities between orbitofrontal brain injury and ASPD, and early amygdala injury and psychopathy. What I have initially liked about the PCL is that it did appear to distinguish those two types.

If the PCL has low inter-rater reliability then it does fail as a measure, although that could be one reason that the company that market it insist on training the PCL raters (lack of experience is one reason for poor inter-rater reliability). I guess my second question to you would be this; If we lack any valid psychometric test or measure, can we really be sure that psychopathy exists?

I'm reasonably certain that it does, as there are physiological markers, such as low skin conductance responses to violent images, and decreased frontal activity in brain imaging. Also, there do exist individuals who seem to be totally self centred and who have a callous disregard for others. These individuals will generally lie and make out that they are sincere and caring, although I'm sure I've read this in work by Hare and others, and it does tend to make one a little paranoid, seeing psychopaths everywhere.

Can we really only detect psychopaths in a qualitative manner? Is there any theoretical obstacle to producing a valid rating scale? or just practical barriers such as the person being rated lying? I appreciate there are tests of malingering for psychometric tests, but that is a different type of deception than pretending you are a caring and sincere person.

Kind regards

Tom Michael

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Re: Questions raised about the validity of the Psychopathy Checklist

I would not say that the failure of the PCL-R is any reason to assume that psychometric measures of psychopathy are not possible or that psychopathy does not exist. I have met a few classic psychopaths (i.e., Cleckely's criteria) in my career and they are unmistakable - like lokking into the eyes of a shark.

But psychopathy does not equate to criminality. Not all psychopaths have a criminal rfecord and not all criminals are psychopaths (indeed, most criminals are not). I think using Cleckley's criteria is a good starting point but creating a psychometric test from that basis is obviously not as easy as it looks. I personally don't think that a 3 point rating scale founded on a subjective estimate or judgement of whether an individual has or does not have a specific characteristic is the way to go.

Add to that the problem of diagnosing via cut-off (e.g., if the PCL-R score is equal to or greater than 30, he is a psychopath; if his score is 29, he is not a psychopath), and the lack of agreement even on what that cut-off should be (the research literature changes the cut-off seemingly on a whim to create better group sizes), and the fundamental concept of the PCL-R seems unsound to me.

As for training, I can tell you that the PCL-R is in widespread use in many venues, especially correctional facilities, parole offices, and the like, where "training" generally involves reading the manual and some of the research literature.

 

[Tom Michael]

Re: Questions raised about the validity of the Psychopathy Checklist

So then, if we agree that psychopathy is a valid construct, and that they can be identified, is there any way we can quantitively measure their traits with reliability? I'm sure that you have correctly identified those that you have met, but I guess that this must have been a qualitative process, using your knowledge and Cleckley's criteria.

I think the dirty secret of a lot of psychometric measures (as opposed to tests) is that whether we assign a 0, 1 or 2 to a trait on a 3 point Likert scale effectively IS a qualitative judgement. I use the Dysexecutive questionnaire (a measure of symptoms of frontal lobe/dysexecutive brain injury), which has good inter-rater reliability amongst psychologists, but I know from personal experience that this reliability drops off dramatically if you as family members to use it to rate their relatives brain injury symptoms.

What I think this means is that creating a psychopath trait measure is possible, but that unless the raters are well trained, its reliability is questionable. You mention that the PCL is used by many non psychologists, which could be one reason why inter-rater reliability is so poor. I strongly suspect that the factor 1 poor reliability is because it is rating internal personality traits, which can be hard to judge objectively as a third party unless you know that person very well.

What criteria might you replace factor 1 with, in order to form a more reliable list? Might you be in a position to test and validate a new checklist, for use only by clinical or forensic psychologists?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Re: Questions raised about the validity of the Psychopathy Checklist

What I think this means is that creating a psychopath trait measure is possible, but that unless the raters are well trained, its reliability is questionable.

I don't think a rating scale is the way I would go at all. I'd go with something a lot less subjective, and a lot less transparent, along the lines of the MMPI.

You mention that the PCL is used by many non psychologists, which could be one reason why inter-rater reliability is so poor.

No. I said that in my experience it is used by a lot of psychologists who purchase the test and read the manual but who do not have the training. I would add that I'm not sure how much difference training would make in any case. Ultimately, this kind of test is highly subject to rater bias.

I strongly suspect that the factor 1 poor reliability is because it is rating internal personality traits, which can be hard to judge objectively as a third party unless you know that person very well.

And see above: If you believe John Doe to be a psychopath, your ratings are biased in that direction before you even begin to complete a PCL.

 

[Tom Michael]

Re: Questions raised about the validity of the Psychopathy Checklist

Ah OK, thanks for clarifying, I understand a lot better where you are coming from now. Especially that when you refer to rater bias you are meaning the rater's belief as to whether the person they are rating is psychopathic or not.

Tom

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Re: Questions raised about the validity of the Psychopathy Checklist

What's this psychopathy hoo-ha all about?
BPS Research Digest
June 11, 2010

A psychology paper by David Cooke and Jennifer Skeem critical of the dominant tool for measuring psychopathy has finally been published after years lying dormant. The delay, according to reports, was due to threats of libel by lawyers representing Robert Hare, author of the criticised tool.

Curiously, back in 2007, when the contentious paper was first moth-balled, a similar and related paper (free to access), also by Cooke and Skeem, plus statistician Christine Michie, was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry. In fact, this paper describes itself as the 'analytical' companion to the 'logical and theoretical' paper that was buried for so long.

So what did the paper that managed to get published back in 2007 have to say? Echoing the scholarly tussles that have surrounded the measurement of many factors in psychology, such as intelligence and personality, Cooke and his co-authors grapple with how best to provide a concrete measurement of a slippery abstract concept, in this case psychopathy.

The gist of their argument is that psychopathy is most appropriately measured by a three-factor version of Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), tapping: arrogant and deceitful interpersonal style; deficient affective experience; and impulsive and irresponsible behavioural style. In short-hand you could say this translates as nasty, unemotional and uninhibited. The point of contention is that Hare's widely used PCL-R measure of psychopathy adds a fourth factor - criminality.

Cooke and his colleagues think this is a big mistake and to support their claims they ran a number of different versions of the psychopathy checklist on answers given by over 1000 adult male offenders. They wrote:

'Psychopathy and criminal behaviour are distinct constructs. If we are to understand their relationships and, critically, whether they have a functional relationship, it essential that these constructs are measured separately. This is particularly critical within the context of the Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorders project, where individuals are detained because of the assumption of a functional link between their personality disorder and the risk that they pose.'
​

In other words, a measure that conflates psychopathy and criminality risks confusing any attempts to understand the links between psychopathy and criminal acts such as rape and murder. Moreover, if raping and murdering become part of the definition of psychopathy, then what sense is there of running a risk assessment on a person diagnosed as psychopathic?

Cooke et al are currently developing what they describe as a 'more comprehensive' model of the construct of psychopathy based on 33 symptoms grouped into six domains. Criminality isn't one of them.

Source
Cooke, D., Michie, C., & Skeem, J. (2007). Understanding the structure of the Psychopathy Checklist - Revised: An exploration of methodological confusion. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 190 (49) DOI: 10.1192/bjp.190.5.s39

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Psychopathy controversy goes primetime
By Karen Franklin, Ph.D.
June 11, 2010

More than a million people worldwide will get a chance to learn about psychology's internal controversy over psychopathy tomorrow, when Science publishes an article on the censorship allegations that I blogged about May 30.

Perhaps not coincidentally, just as the June 11 issue of the world's leading scientific news outlet hits the presses, the American Psychological Association is suddenly publishing the disputed article that was siderailed for more than three years.

Forensic psychologists Jennifer Skeem and David Cooke submitted the contested article to Psychological Assessment in 2006. It was peer reviewed, accepted, and scheduled for publication in 2007, but was derailed after Robert Hare, inventor of the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL), threatened to sue for defamation.

As you will remember from my previous blog post, the controversy surfaced in an opinion piece last month in the International Journal of Forensic Mental Health by two psychology-law leaders.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aGGtGBGkMVQ/TBEjLV0FjLI/AAAAAAAABec/Lxh3ZMEKFTE/s1600/psychopath.jpg"[T]he threat of litigation constitutes a serious threat to academic freedom and potentially to scientific progress," wrote attorney John Petrila and psychologist Norman Poythress. "Academic freedom rests on the premise that advances in science can only occur if scholars are permitted to pursue free competition among ideas. This assumes that scholars have the liberty to do their work free from limitations imposed by political or religious pressure or by economic reprisals."
​

Hare now says he is "upset colleagues are suggesting he squelched academic debate," Science writer John Tavris reports, as his "lawsuit threat was meant only to get the 'attention' of APA, Skeem, and Cooke and force changes to the article."

The Science report is a sidebar to a larger piece on reform efforts over plaintiff-friendly libel laws in the United Kingdom. That country's laws, in which the defendant bears the burden of proof, are under fire from around the world over their allegedly chilling effect on scientific research on controversial topics. Critics say they encourage "libel tourism," in which corporations sue there over alleged offenses that occurred elsewhere.

PCL-R reification hampering science

The contested article by Skeem and Cooke, "Is Criminal Behavior a Central Component of Psychopathy? Conceptual Directions for Resolving the Debate," posits that the field of forensic psychology has prematurely embraced Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) as the gold standard for psychopathy, due in large part to legal demands for a tool to predict violence. Yet the PCL-R's ability to predict violent recidivism owes in large part to its conflation of the supposed personality construct of psychopathy with past criminal behavior, they argue:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aGGtGBGkM...BeU/Ipv8bxzJ8_0/s1600/psychopath_darkened.bmp[T]he modern justice context has created a strong demand for identifying bad, dangerous people?. [The] link between the PCL and violence has supported a myth that emotionally detached psychopaths callously use violence to achieve control over and exploit others. As far as the PCL is concerned, this notion rests on virtually no empirical support?. [T]he process of understanding psychopathy must be separated from the enterprise of predicting violence.
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Criminal behavior weighs heavily in the PCL's 20 items because the instrument emerged from research with prisoners. But using the PCL-R's consequent ability to predict violence to assert the theoretical validity of its underlying personality construct is a tautological, or circular, argument, claim Skeem and Cooke. Or, as John Ellard put it more directly back in 1998:

"Why has this man done these terrible things? Because he is a psychopath. And how do you know that he is a psychopath? Because he has done these terrible things."
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Rebuttal and response

Alongside the critique, Psychological Assessment has published a rebuttal by Robert Hare and Craig Neumann, along with a surrebuttal by Cooke and Skeem. Hare and Neumann accuse the critics of erecting a straw-man argument and misrepresenting their work:

The very title of their article is a straw man based on the unfounded claim that Hare and his colleagues consider criminality to be central or fundamental to the psychopathy construct. Their claim is bolstered by arguments misconstruing our published work and that of others and by quotes of our work that have been taken out of context or reconstructed in such a way that it appears that we have said something that we did not say. Skeem and Cooke also made highly selective use of the literature, often omitting published studies that directly contradict or do not support the points they attempted to make, particularly with respect to the role of antisocial tendencies in clinical and empirical conceptions of psychopathy. These tactics are inconsistent with their tutorial on the philosophy of science, compromise their arguments, and divert attention from any legitimate issues raised in their article. We contend that Skeem and Cooke did the field a disservice by presenting an inaccurate account of the role of the PCL?R in theory and research on psychopathy, both applied and basic.
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I encourage readers to analyze all three papers, along with the two reports in Science, and draw your own conclusions.

• My original post on the controversy is HERE; a brief followup is HERE.
• Science writer John Travis' blog post on the story, in Science Insider (with more links), is HERE.
• Coverage at Mind Hacks is HERE.
• For more background and links on the UK libel law reform campaign, see my March 27 post, "Lie detection critic silenced by lawsuit."

The current issue of Psychological Assessment contains another article pertaining to the controversial psychopathy construct. In their abstract of Validity of Rorschach Inkblot scores for discriminating psychopaths from nonpsychopaths in forensic populations: A meta-analysis, authors James Wood, Scott Lilienfeld and colleagues assert:

Gacono and Meloy (2009) have concluded that the Rorschach Inkblot Test is a sensitive instrument with which to discriminate psychopaths from nonpsychopaths. We examined the association of psychopathy with 37 Rorschach variables in a meta-analytic review of 173 validity coefficients derived from 22 studies comprising 780 forensic participants?. The present findings contradict the view that the Rorschach is a clinically sensitive instrument for discriminating psychopaths from nonpsychopaths.
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[Tom Michael]

I haven't read the papers, (and probably won't have time as I really need to be completing my PhD) but how is one group of researchers "impulsive and irresponsible behavioural style" different from what they refer to as "criminality" in Hare's 2 factor solution? I'm sure one of Hare's papers refers to factor 2 as an "irresponsible and chaotic lifestyle" rather than criminality. Is Hare just pissed off because they are saying what he is saying, whilst making a straw man argument of his work by making out he is saying something else?

I get the point though, most research on psychopaths is based on incarcerated psychopaths, meaning that criminality is a given. The non incarcerated psychopaths don't tend to be measured, but Hare contends that plenty of them have jobs as lawyers, bankers and used car salesmen. These successful psychopaths are high on his factor 1 but low on factor 2, which implies they are low on "chaotic and irresponsible lifestyle" or criminality or whatever you want to call it. My point is that, as far as I can tell, Hare ALSO thinks that not all psychopaths are criminal, and is just pissed off that people are saying heis work suggests that criminality IS central to psychopathy.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Actually, I think he's annoyed that more people are publicly pointing out that his PCL-R measures criminality. not psychopathy. Some of us have known that for a long time. He'd rather people didn't noptice that.

And of course Hare is someone who has never reacted well to criticism throughout his career. Indeed, he's found it difficult to tolerate any reaction from the rest of the mental health field with the exception of praise and idolatry.

It's sad, really, because the man did some good work, especially earlier in his career. The PCL-R is his great failure, in my opinion, and he is going to go to his grave denying that.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Academic Battle Delays Publication by 3 Years
By BENEDICT CAREY, New York Times
June 11, 2010

Academic disputes usually flare out in the safety of obscure journals, raising no more than a few tempers, if not voices. But a paper published this week by the American Psychological Association has managed to raise questions of censorship, academic fraud, fair play and criminal sentencing — and all them well before the report ever became public.

The paper is a critique of a rating scale that is widely used in criminal courts to determine whether a person is a psychopath and likely to commit acts of violence. It was accepted for publication in a psychological journal in 2007, but the inventor of the rating scale saw a draft and threatened a lawsuit if it was published, setting in motion a stultifying series of reviews, revisions and legal correspondence.

“This has been a really, really troubling process from the beginning,” said Scott O. Lilienfeld, a psychologist at Emory University and a collaborator with one of the paper’s authors. “It has people wondering, ‘Do I have to worry every time I publish a paper that criticizes someone that I’ll get slapped with a lawsuit?’ ” The delay in publication, he said, “sets a very dangerous precedent” and censors scientific discourse.

The inventor of the clinical test, Robert D. Hare, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, sees a different principle at stake.

“The main issue here is that these authors misrepresented my views by distorting things I said,” he said in a telephone interview. “I have been doing this work for 40 years and never seen anything like it.”

For its part, the psychological association maintained in a statement that it had never refused to publish a paper because of a threatened lawsuit but that it had “a responsibility to all parties to evaluate a legal claim.” The paper’s authors — Jennifer L. Skeem of the University of California, Irvine, and David J. Cooke of Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland — also had lawyers, and the Scottish university did an extensive review of its own, people familiar with the process said.

“All I can tell you is that delays in the editorial process come from multiple sources,” said Gary VandenBos, the psychological association’s publisher.

The paper — Is Criminal Behavior a Central Component of Psychopathy? — was circulated widely among forensic psychologists well before publication. Experts say the scientific issue it raises is an important one.

Dr. Hare’s clinical scale, called the Psychopathy Checklist, Revised, is one of the few, if not the only, psychological measures in forensic science with any scientific backing. Dr. Hare receives royalties when the checklist is used; he called the income it generated “modest” compared with providing paid expert testimony — which he said he does not do.
Dr. Skeem and Dr. Cooke warned in their paper that the checklist was increasingly being mistaken for a complete definition of psychopathy — a broader personality construct that includes deceitfulness, impulsivity and recklessness, though not always aggression or illegal acts. The authors contended that Dr. Hare’s checklist warps that concept by making criminal behavior a more central component than it really is.

Dr. Hare maintains that he has stressed “problematic, not antisocial or criminal, behavior” and that his comments were distorted.

Dr. Skeem said she was “just worn out” by the prolonged dispute.

“When we first wrote the paper,” she said, “we saw it simply as a call to the field to recognize we were going down a path where we were equating an abstract concept with a checklist, and it was preventing us from looking at the concept more closely.”

The report appears in the June issue of the journal Psychological Assessment — that is, along with a rebuttal by Dr. Hare, and a return response from Dr. Skeem and Dr. Cooke.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

New York Times covers psychopathy debacle
By Karen Franklin, Ph.D.
June 12, 2010

I had no idea when I broke the news of this censorship controversy that it would generate so much mainstream attention. First Science ran with it, and today it's made the New York Times; I am told other major U.S. and international news outlets have made inquiries. I hope this affair will serve as a dramatic lesson to others who might think about making legal threats when someone criticizes their work. The move certainly backfired against psychopathy guru Robert Hare.

Certain theories have weightier real-world implications than others. When a capital case defendant is labeled a "psychopath" in court, it can literally mean the difference between life and death. Similarly, the pejorative label has serious consequences for someone facing lifelong civil detention as a sexual predator. Thus, critical analysis of the reliability and validity of the underlying theory is essential. Researchers whose work lends itself to partisan forensic application should expect scrutiny.

Here's what Benedict Carey, health beat reporter at the New York Times, had to say:

Academic disputes usually flare out in the safety of obscure journals, raising no more than a few tempers, if not voices. But a paper published this week by the American Psychological Association has managed to raise questions of censorship, academic fraud, fair play and criminal sentencing -- and all them well before the report ever became public.

The paper is a critique of a rating scale that is widely used in criminal courts to determine whether a person is a psychopath and likely to commit acts of violence. It was accepted for publication in a psychological journal in 2007, but the inventor of the rating scale saw a draft and threatened a lawsuit if it was published, setting in motion a stultifying series of reviews, revisions and legal correspondence.

"This has been a really, really troubling process from the beginning," said Scott O. Lilienfeld, a psychologist at Emory University and a collaborator with one of the paper's authors. "It has people wondering, 'Do I have to worry every time I publish a paper that criticizes someone that I?ll get slapped with a lawsuit?' " The delay in publication, he said, "sets a very dangerous precedent" and censors scientific discourse?.

Dr. Hare's clinical scale, called the Psychopathy Checklist, Revised, is one of the few, if not the only, psychological measures in forensic science with any scientific backing?. Dr. Skeem and Dr. Cooke warned in their paper that the checklist was increasingly being mistaken for a complete definition of psychopathy -- a broader personality construct that includes deceitfulness, impulsivity and recklessness, though not always aggression or illegal acts. The authors contended that Dr. Hare's checklist warps that concept by making criminal behavior a more central component than it really is?.

"When we first wrote the paper," [Jennifer Skeem] said, "we saw it simply as a call to the field to recognize we were going down a path where we were equating an abstract concept with a checklist, and it was preventing us from looking at the concept more closely."
​

Carey's full article is HERE. I will be sure to keep readers posted on any further developments.

POSTSCRIPT​

This evening, readers alerted me that Robert Hare has posted a lengthy response giving his side of the controversy. His essay, On Fairness in Academic Debate: A Commentary on Poythress and Petrila (2010) and Related Matters, claims that Poythress and Petrila's critical opinion piece in the International Journal of Forensic Mental Health (see my May 30 blog post) was biased and one-sided. He presents a timeline of the events surrounding the lengthy delay in publishing the underlying psychopathy article by Skeem and Cooke in Psychological Assessment, and gives specific examples of their allegedly egregious misrepresentations of his work. He comments:

? Poythress and Petrila and Hart failed to give an impartial and complete account of the situation. Their actions resulted in publication and circulation of a seriously biased account of events, and a commentary in the June 11 issue of Science, which noted that there are several sides to every issue?. I have no arguments with their thoughtful and commendable views about the nature of scientific debate and peer review, and about the potential fallout from threats of litigation?. I would welcome a formal investigation of the entire matter by an appropriately impartial body. I also would be willing to engage in open debate with the parties involved?. Contrary to the characterizations of others, I made extensive efforts to use the academic system in this case, but [the Skeem and Cooke] article went beyond the boundary of fair academic debate and criticism. The nature of the issue and the authors' refusal to correct their egregious statements gave me no reasonable alternative?.

Would I do it again, given similar circumstances? Perhaps not, for like a whistle-blower the focus soon turns to the person who made the complaint and not on the issues and events that led to the complaint. Further, many in the scientific community believe that there are no grounds for litigation concerning academic works, no matter what the circumstances. I?ve learned from this experience that not all academics and scientists play by the accepted rules of science, and that legal redress for those claiming injustice is frowned upon by many as rocking the academic/scientific boat, however leaky it may be; a professional Catch-22 that serves to deny academics the legal rights enjoyed by the rest of the population.
​

His full statement is HERE. Again, I encourage readers interested in this subject to read Skeem and Cooke's Psychological Assessment article, rebuttal, and surrebuttal and form your own opinions. My previous posts on the brouhaha can be found HERE.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Psychopathy brouhaha: It's a wrap (I hope!)
By Karen Franklin, Ph.D.
June 18, 2010

Today's Scientific American has more on the censorship controversy I've featured here in recent weeks. As regular readers know, the flap centers around allegations that psychopathy researcher Robert Hare tried to silence critics by threatening to sue. The controversial article was finally published this month in the American Psychological Association publication Psychological Assessment, but the fallout continues.

The column by J.R. Minkel, oddly titled "Fear Review," features a rundown, including commentary by prominent scholar Stephen Hart:

People familiar with the matter say the scale's author, Robert Hare of the University of British Columbia, deserves only partial blame for the delay, to be shared with the American Psychological Association (APA), the journal's publisher. But they say Hare's use of legal threats has at best subverted the peer review process that is the crux of modern scientific progress, and could at worst encourage junior researchers in the field of forensic psychology to pursue other lines of research.

"I find this action to be completely inconsistent with the man I had [great] respect and affection for," says Stephen Hart of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, a collaborator and former student of Hare's. "People I speak with automatically think, 'Well, what's in that article that makes him so upset? What's he so afraid of?'
​

After reading all of the publicly available materials on the controversy, as well as numerous email posts on professional listservs, here's how I boil things down to the essence:

• The Skeem and Cooke article is an important scientific analysis of the theoretical construct of psychopathy, which is increasingly being used as a weapon in court with grave consequences for those it is deployed against.

• Not surprisingly, Robert Hare disagrees with Skeem and Cooke. Specifically, he does not agree with their claim that his Psychopathy Checklist or the underlying psychopathy construct centralizes criminality.

• Hare claims that Skeem and Cooke distorted his work. In a written response, he gives three examples of alleged distortions. Presumably, since he was preparing his response for publication, he picked the best examples he could find to illustrate his complaint. Yet, these are nowhere near as egregious as I had imagined they would be, given his threat to sue.

• Hare accuses two well respected psychology-law leaders, Norm Poythress and John Petrila, of being biased and misinformed. But nothing in his response supports this. Poythress and Petrila, in their article in the International Journal of Forensic Mental Health that set this whole ball in motion, were careful not to take sides in the underlying scientific debate over psychopathy. Rather, they focused on the threat to academic freedom and science posed by threats to sue: "Academic freedom rests on the premise that advances in science can only occur if scholars are permitted to pursue free competition among ideas. This assumes that scholars have the liberty to do their work free from limitations imposed by political or religious pressure or by economic reprisals."

• Hare has claimed elsewhere that his "lawsuit threat was meant only to get the 'attention' of APA, Skeem, and Cooke and force changes to the article." In his essay, he expresses bafflement at the ensuing, lengthy delay in the article's publication. To claim that his threat to sue did not contribute to the lengthy delay is either disingenuous or na?ve. Especially in the wake of other controversies, such as the Rind debacle in which the U.S. Congress blasted the APA's publication and peer review process, the Association is undoubtedly very gun-shy and reactive over lawsuit threats.

The bottom line:


After analyzing all sides of the issue, I find that the Skeem and Cooke article is an important and timely contribution to the field, and that threats to sue over such publications set a dangerous precedent. As Poythress and Petrila point out in their commentary, potential negative effects of defamation threats against scientific researchers include -- among other things -- that:

1. researchers avoid critical research out of fear of lawsuits,
2. academics avoid volunteering as peer reviewers, and
3. journal editors self-censor on controversial topics

Censorship -- or even the appearance of censorship -- is especially dangerous when it involves critique of a construct that may be used in a partisan manner in the forensic arena.

Hare is entitled to express his opinion, but nothing in his public response changes these bottom lines. Rather, as Jennifer Skeem notes in today's Scientific American piece, all of this peripheral controversy distracts from the scientific critique of psychopathy, including her critique that was silenced for three years before finally seeing the light of day.