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Cited by 607

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 120 of the 120 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Is criminal behavior a central component of psychopathy? Conceptual directions for resolving the debate.

Skeem, Jennifer L., Cooke, David J.·2010·Psychological Assessment
DOI 10.1037/a0008512
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Abstract

The development of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 2003) has fueled intense clinical interest in the construct of psychopathy. Unfortunately, a side effect of this interest has been conceptual confusion and, in particular, the conflating of measures with constructs. Indeed, the field is in danger of equating the PCL-R with the theoretical construct of psychopathy. A key point in the debate is whether criminal behavior is a central component, or mere downstream correlate, of psychopathy. In this article, the authors present conceptual directions for resolving this debate. First, factor analysis of PCL-R items in a theoretical vacuum cannot reveal the essence of psychopathy. Second, a myth about the PCL-R and its relation to violence must be examined to avoid the view that psychopathy is merely a violent variant of antisocial personality disorder. Third, a formal, iterative process between theory development and empirical validation must be adopted. Fundamentally, constructs and measures must be recognized as separate entities, and neither reified. Applying such principles to the current state of the field, the authors believe the evidence favors viewing criminal behavior as a correlate, not a component, of psychopathy.

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Metadata

Authors
Skeem, J. L., & Cooke, D. J.
Venue
Psychological Assessment
Publisher
American Psychological Association (APA)
Published
2010-06
Volume
22
Issue
2
Pages
433-445
ISSN
  • 1040-3590 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-134X
DOI
10.1037/a0008512
OpenAlex
W2112744743
Cited by
607
References
120
FWCI
44.40
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Is criminal behavior a central component of psychopathy? Conceptual directions for resolving the debate. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037/a0008512
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Skeem, J. L., & Cooke, D. J. (2010). Is criminal behavior a central component of psychopathy? Conceptual directions for resolving the debate. Psychological Assessment. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0008512

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.