SELF-REPORT PSYCHOPATHY SCALE SRP, SRP-II AND SRP-III 1 Development of the SRP

Hare (1985) created the original Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (SRP), which consisted of 29 items. The SRP was revised and became the SRP-II. An additional 31 items were added in an attempt to capture the core features of psychopathy, so the SRP-II was a 60 item measure (Hare, Harpur & Hemphill, 1989). However, a 31 item version of the SRP-II is also used.

Williams & Paulhus (2004) identified two problems with the structure of the SRP-II. They believed that there was an excess o f anxiety related items and they questioned the usefulness of items that had been included to capture antisocial behaviour. The SRP was originally designed to be used in non-forensic samples and there were only a few items that captured antisocial behaviour. The authors appear to have underestimated the prevalence of antisocial behaviour in individuals in the community who do not have

convictions for committing offences. However, the results of a study by Williams, McAndrew, Learn, Harms & Paulhus (2001) found evidence of misconduct in a sample of college students, which was higher than originally anticipated. As a result, additional antisocial items were added to the SRP-II, such as “7 have cheated during a school test.” The SRP-II was not published and only distributed informally amongst a handful of researchers, which limited its use and development (Williams & Paulhus, 2003).

Williams, Nathanson & Paulhus (2003) state that the SRP-III was developed in an attempt to mirror the four Facet structure of the PCL-R. Nine extra items were added to the 31 item version of the SRP-II to create a 40 item measure the SRP-III (Williams et al., 2003). The SRP-III has four subscales, each with 10 items that resembles the PCL-R; Interpersonal Manipulation (resembles Facet 1), Cold Affect (resembles Facet 2),

Impulsive Thrill Seeking (resembles Facet 3) and Antisocial Behaviour (resembles Facet 4).

3.2 Factor structure of the SRP

Hare (1991) created a two factor structure in the SRP-II in order to mirror the two factor structure of the PCL-R. Williams & Paulhus (2004) refer to personal communication with Hare who informed them that 31 items were assigned to either a personality or

behavioural subscale to reflect Factor 1 and Factor 2 of the PCL-R. There are no further details about how items were selected and assigned to SRP-II subscales.

students. They identified a two and five factor solution. They suggest that both solutions were disappointing. Williams, Paulhus & Hare (2007) recommend that the two factors identified in the SRP-II should not be used as they were demonstrated to be separate (orthogonal) and do not overlap. Williams et al. (2007) state this is of concern as subscales usually contribute to an overall construct, in this case psychopathy.

Williams et al. (2007) state that the factor structure o f the SRP-II does not accurately reflect the four factor structure of the PCL-R (Hare, 2003). They created a 77 item version of the SRP-III which they administered to 249 undergraduate students. They eventually identified a four factor solution; Factor 1 Interpersonal Manipulation (IPM), Factor 2 Criminal Tendencies (CT), Factor 3 Erratic Lifestyle (ELS) and Factor 4 Callous Affect (CA). Williams et al. (2007) also found support for the four factor structure of the SRP-III. They concluded that the SRP-III (77 item version) contained four distinct, but intercorrelated factors, which contribute to an overall total psychopathy score.

3.3 Psychometric properties of the SRP, SRP-II and SRP-III

There are a number of studies that report the psychometric properties of the SRP. However, these studies have used different versions of the SRP and with different

populations. Hare (1985) reports a Cronbach alpha value of (.80) for the SRP in a sample of offenders. Lilienfeld & Penna (2001) report a Cronbach alpha value of (.90) in a sample of students using the SRP-II. They also reported Cronbach alpha values for Factor

1 of the SRP-II (.59) and Factor 2 of the SRP-II (.72). Paulhus & Williams (2002) report a Cronbach alpha value of (.79) for the SRP-III total score. Williams et al. (2007) report Cronbach alpha values for the SRP-III in a sample of 274 undergraduate students. They

report a value of (.88) for SRP-III total score. Thus the various versions appear to have acceptable internal reliability.

There do not appear to be any studies that have explored test-retest reliability for this measure.

3.4 SRP and PCL-R

Hare (1985) found that SRP correlated only modestly with the Psychopathy Checklist (Hare, 1991) (r = .28). Forth, Brown, Hart & Hare (1996) correlated the SRP-II with the PCL-R:SV (Hart, Cox & Hare, 1995) in a sample of 150 university students. Forth et al. (1996) found positive correlations of (r = .62) for male subjects and (r = .55) for females. A moderate correlation (r = .35) was also found between SRP-II and PCL:YV (Benning & Salekin, 2005).

There are no published studies that report correlations between the PCL-R and SRP-III (personal correspondence with Dr. Paulhus, 2006). However, Dr. Paulhus stated that SRP-III correlates strongly with PCL-R (r = .67-.78). He said that the difference between the two measures is that SRP-III has an improved factor structure.

3.5 SRP and emotional processing

There are a limited number of studies that have examined the relationship between SRP- II scores and performance on tasks, particularly where physiological measurement has been undertaken during task completion. Bare, Hopko & Armento (2004) assigned and

participants to groups based on their Factor 1 and 2 scores on the SRP-II. Physiological measurement, heart rate and electrodermal activity, were made while participants listened to four vignettes, neutral (peaceful walk through a forest), anxiety (delivering a speech to a group of classmates), minor rule violation (shoplifting, bumping into a stationary car on a car park) and major rule violation (stealing property from a neighbour’s home). During the presentation of all four vignettes, participants in the SRP-II high Factor 1 group demonstrated lower levels of electrodermal activity. No significant results were obtained relating to SRP-II Factor 2 and physiological measurement. As previously stated, these results are consistent with the findings of Vanman et al. (2003) who found that Factor 1 of the PCL-R is related to reduced blink startle when viewing negative pictures.

Mahmut, Homewood & Stevenson (2008) explored the relationship between the SRP-III and the Emotional Empathy Questionnaire (EEQ; Mehrabian & Epstein, 1972). The EEQ was designed to measure emotional empathy, for example, an understanding of other people’s feelings. One example of a question on the EEQ is “seeing people cry upsets me. ” Mahmut et al. (2008) found that SRP-III total score was significantly negatively correlated with EEQ total score (r = -.31). This result means that participants with a high level of self-reported psychopathy demonstrated a poorer understanding of emotional empathy.

3.6 SRP conclusions

In conclusion, the SRP (III) has internal consistency, but its inter-rater reliability is not known. Its factor structure, whilst designed to mirror the four Facet structure of the PCL-

R is not well established and even its concurrent validity to the PCL-R is not well established. Whilst there is some preliminary evidence for construct validity, this again is not well-developed.

4. LEVENSON’S SELF-REPORT PSYCHOPATHY SCALE LSRP