Psychopathic disturbance in the scottish prison population: The Cross-Cultural generalisability of the hare psychopathy checklist

Abstract

The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised has been shown to have clinical and empirical utility in North American settings. Ratings from a systematic sample of the Scottish Prison population were subjected to a series of analyses in order to assess the cross-cultural generalisability of this measure. Estimates of factor congruence, factor strength and internal reliability indicated that the underlying constructs being measured in North America and Scotland were essentially similar. The observed difference in the prevalence of psychopathy in Scottish prisons as compared with North American prisons was examined: it is concluded that this difference is unlikely to be the consequence of rater bias. The value of a cross-cultural perspective is emphasised.