Elucidating the Construct Validity of the Anitsocial Process Screening Device (APSD) in a Sample of Young Adults

Abstract

The current investigation sought to examine whether an adolescent-focused measure of psychopathic personality traits, the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD; Frick and Hare 2001), could be appropriately used with young adults. Using a sample of university students, we examined the construct validity of the APSD by evaluating the latent factor structure and examining convergent and discriminant validity of factor scores. Results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicated that a three factor structure had optimal fit in the current sample. We also compared these model results to a sample of juvenile delinquents, and these analyses indicated that the factor structure was generally invariant across these two samples. Correlation and multiple regression analyses, which examined associations between the APSD and conceptually-relevant external criteria, supported the convergent and discriminant validity of the APSD total and factor scores across two major age categories and differing samples. Implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed.