Development and Validation of an Expanded Version of the Three-Factor Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale

Abstract

The Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP; Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995) is a brief self-report questionnaire frequently used in psychopathy research. Although the scale has many desirable properties such as brevity and being available in the public domain, there are also several psychometric concerns associated with it, including low internal consistency, problematic construct validity, and incomplete conceptual coverage of several components of psychopathy. In 2 studies, we provide evidence that additional items can augment the LSRP to address the aforementioned concerns. In the first study, using a large sample of students and members of the general Australian community (n = 729), we found that an expanded 36-item, 3-factor version of the LSRP was associated with improvements in internal consistency and construct coverage with little degradation in model fit. In the second study, using another Australian community sample (n = 300), we replicated the results of Study 1 and demonstrated improvements in construct validity for the expanded 36-item, 3-factor scale compared to the 19-item, 3-factor scale. Our results indicate that, although slightly longer, the expanded version of the 3-factor LSRP ameliorates many of the concerns associated with its original counterpart.