Abstract
The present study aimed to identify meaningful subtypes of psychopathy among Chinese female offenders. A Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) based on the scores of the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathic Scale was performed in a sample of Chinese female prisoners (N = 279, M age = 45.43, SD = 8.62). The LPA yielded three profiles: “low psychopathy group” (27.6%), “moderate psychopathy group” (66.7%), and “high egocentricity and antisocial group” (5.7%). These profiles differed on all outcome variables including anxiety, depression, reactive aggression, and proactive aggression. The high egocentricity and antisocial group had a greater risk for anxiety, recidivism, impulsiveness, and aggression. Overall, the findings support the existence of psychopathy subtypes in non-Western cultural contexts, suggest gender similarities in the manifestation of psychopathy traits, and further the understanding of psychopathy typologies.
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Funding
This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31400904) and China Scholarship Council (Grant No. CSC201808440626). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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Gong, J., Zhang, X., Wang, MC. et al. Latent Profile Analysis of Psychopathy in Chinese Female Offenders. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 44, 608–619 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-022-09958-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-022-09958-8
Keywords
- Psychopathy variants
- Latent profile analysis
- Chinese female offenders
- Heterogeneity