Defining and Assessing Psychopathy

Psychopathy is a topic that has long been fascinating to the public at large as well as to scientists and clinical practitioners. However, it has also been subject to considerable confusion and scholarly debate over the years. This chapter describes alternative conceptions of psychopathy that have been proposed historically, and reviews major instruments currently in use for the assessment of psychopathic features/traits in clinical and nonclinical samples. An integrative theoretical framework, the triarchic model, is considered as a basis for reconciling differing historic conceptions and assessment approaches. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the utility of the triarchic model for addressing issues such as psychopathy subtypes, successful versus unsuccessful psychopathy, and causal factors contributing to different behavioral expressions of psychopathy.