精神病性人格障碍包括独特的情感,人际交往和行为特征的集合。精神病测试的结果可以影响考生的改变生活的决定,包括授予假释,性暴力捕食者民事承诺试验,获得治疗,甚至被判处死亡。由于该疾病有力地预测了暴力和普遍的犯罪累犯,因此它对惩教理论,公共政策和国际规模的法律决策产生了影响。尽管精神病是心理学和法律领域中研究最多的疾病之一,但直到最近,最有效的调查涉及北美的白人男性囚犯和法医精神病患者。鉴于对精神病的评估定期进行,并且在许多情况下是法律上的,因此确定主要是白人男性研究的程度至关重要,主要是其他相关人群(例如其他种族背景的人)。研究表明,精神病清单重新定义(PCL-R)以一种文化的民族文化群体公正地衡量该疾病(北美内部的白人与黑人,苏格兰与英国的英语和英语和威尔士在英国内)。但是,有一些证据表明跨国度量的不变性:也就是说,北美人获得的PCL-R得分比欧洲人高2到3分,鉴于对精神病的潜在特征的等效水平。此外,尽管精神病情感症状的评分几乎没有跨文化的偏见,但确实存在人际关系和行为症状的评分。鉴于在做出有关个体自由的重要决定时,PCL-R结果的重大重量是至关重要的,跨文化研究继续进行,最好使用更多文化知情的种族状况分类,并具有各种样本,包括妇女和女孩,包括妇女和女孩,以及欧洲和北美以外的人。 Such research may also shed light on the etiological bases underpinning the divergent manifestations of psychopathy.
种族是指文化和血统的差异。在社会科学研究中,种族术语通常与种族互换使用,尽管以前的术语通常表示更细粒度的遗传差异。在精神病研究中,种族通常基于自我识别,而不是生物学或遗传分类。在本研究论文中,种族一词用于指在有关种族和精神病的相关研究文献中概念化的种族,文化和种族群体。在本研究论文基础上已经解决了三个关键问题:(a)在各组之间观察到精神病外部相关性之间相似的关联模式的程度,(b)跨组的测量概括,以及(c)精神病性状的平均水平跨小组。
External Correlates of Psychopathy across Ethnic Groups
For psychopathy to be construed as a universal syndrome, the correlates of psychopathy should be similar across ethnic groups. The correlates that, perhaps, are of greatest interest include antisocial behavior and violence. Results of studies on adult criminal offending in the community conducted outside North America and with non-Whites in North America are similar in that psychopathy is inversely related to age of onset of criminal behavior and that individuals scoring high on psychopathic traits commit more violent and nonviolent crime and are more versatile in their crime patterns. Meta-analytic evidence indicates, however, that psychopathy is a weaker correlate of violent recidivism among more ethnically diverse samples of juvenile offenders relative to primarily White samples. Pertaining to institutional aggression, meta-analytic results indicate that the country under study matters: Although the predictive utility of psychopathy for broad categories of institutional misbehavior is good, its relation to violent infractions in the United States is substantially smaller than in non-U.S. institutions. One explanation for this disparity is the potentially greater ethnic heterogeneity in U.S. samples.
Another class of external correlates of psychopathy comprises psychophysiological and behavioral variables that exhibit reliable patterns in North American samples. The few cross-cultural studies investigating such variables offer inconsistent findings. Additionally, studies of performance on laboratory tasks that assess cognitive and emotional processing in North America suggest that Whites and Blacks high on psychopathic traits may process information differently.
Studies conducted in North America and abroad on the association between psychopathy and major mental illness and personality disorders indicate similar patterns for comorbid psychiatric diagnoses and self-report personality traits. However, research investigating White and Black U.S. offenders suggests that members of these groups do not manifest the same patterns of correlations between psychopathy and self-report personality measures. Whereas the association between psychopathy and self-reported negative affect is similar for Blacks and Whites, associations between impulsivity and psychoticism are less consistent. The observed discrepancies suggest that mechanisms underlying psychopathy may differ for Blacks and Whites and may be influenced by genetic and sociocultural factors that vary across ethnic groups.
Measurement Generalization across Ethnic Groups
In contemporary research, psychopathy most often is operationalized vis-a-vis the PCL family of measures. Traditional psychometric evaluations indicate adequate reliability for the PCL-R among non-White adults as well as for adolescents of various ethnicities assessed with the youth version of the measure. To demonstrate cross-cultural equivalence of the PCL-R, it is also necessary to demonstrate that the factor structure of the measure is the same across ethnic groups (i.e., that the same items or symptoms cluster together). There is clear evidence of a replicable factor structure(s) among White and Black adult men in U.S. prisons; among White, Black, and Latino boys in the United States; and among European men (including men from Scotland and several continental European countries).
Cross-cultural equivalence in the case of the PCL-R also requires that the association between test scores and the latent trait of psychopathy be invariant across ethnic groups (metric invariance), which may be examined using item response theory (IRT). IRT confers several distinct advantages to investigations of cross-cultural disparities: Representative samples are not required, more detailed analysis of individual ratings can be provided, and a determination can be made regarding whether scores are measured on the same scale with different ethnic groups. An often-cited analogy that involves the measurement of temperature using Fahrenheit and Celsius degrees may help clarify the last point: Although both scales measure the same construct, comparisons are meaningless because they differ in zero points and scale increments. In the case of the PCL-R, metric variance across groups is problematic because different scores could express the same level of the latent trait of psychopathy (or, conversely, the same PCL-R score obtained by two groups would not represent the same underlying level of the disorder). In general, research using IRT methods indicates that the PCL-R may be used in an unbiased way with Blacks. However, there does appear to be evidence of metric invariance between North America and Europe (both in the United Kingdom and continental countries). Compared with North Americans, Europeans tend to obtain lower PCL-R total, factor, and item scores for the same level of the underlying trait of the disorder, thereby prompting some experts to recommend adjusting the diagnostic threshold of a total PCL-R score of 30 used in North America to 28 when used in Europe. The symptoms tapping the deficient affective experience seem to be the most diagnostic of psychopathy and are thought to be more stable across cultures compared with the interpersonal and behavioral features of the disorder. However, at extreme levels of psychopathy, the interpersonal symptoms may provide more diagnostic information (especially in the United Kingdom). Research indicates that these cross-national differences in psychopathy reflect genuine differences in the expression of the disorder, rather than raters’ perceptions of the psychopathic symptoms.
精神病特征水平的差异
由于已经证明了在黑人和白人之间测量PCL-R总分的概括性,因此使用该工具来研究这些群体是否在其表现精神病特征的程度上有所不同。两个大规模的荟萃分析已经为成人和青少年检查了这个问题。当在骨料中检查了21个研究的黑人和白人成年人的PCL-R总分之间的差异(总体样本量为8,890个个体)时,没有观察到两组之间的分数可靠,有意义的差异。当平均16个研究的黑白青少年的青年量度的总分之间的差异(总体样本量为2,199)时,黑人青年的精神病特征评分显着更高。然而,重要的是,这种效果的总体幅度很小,对应于40分精神病量表上约1.5分。两项研究的效果大小(分数与种族之间的关联)都存在相当大的异质性,但是尚未确定种族与精神病分数之间关系的明确主持人。
Explaining Cross-Group Differences in Psychopathy
Experts agree that a host of biological, psychological, and social factors likely contribute to the etiology of personality disorders. A major weakness in the psychopathy research in this area is that ethnic/racial categories are fairly simplistic, created on the basis of self-identification in the absence of a consideration of relevant variables (including biological, genetic, psychological, and social) that influence group membership. Substantial within-group heterogeneity exists regarding important dimensions such as acculturation, ethnic identity, socioeconomic status, and neighborhood characteristics, and these sources of heterogeneity present obstacles to pinpointing the etiological factors underlying any group differences that may be observed. Pertaining to psychopathy research, relying on simplistic classifications of ethnicity such as Black and White severely constrains the potential to identify more proximal causes of observed disparities in psychopathy. As but one example of the importance of considering how contextual factors that vary across ethnic groups may be critical in explaining socially deviant behavior, consider the example of living in a “bad” neighborhood. In a large-scale study in which more than 900 civil psychiatric patients were administered the screening version of the PCL-R and followed in the community for 1 year, the degree to which an individual’s neighborhood was disadvantaged (indexed by rates of public assistance, poverty, unemployment, managerial employment, vacant dwellings, female-headed households, and average household wage) was strongly associated with race (i.e., being Black was associated with living in a more disadvantaged neighborhood). Race retained little relation to psychopathy once neighborhood disadvantage was taken into account by statistical methods. In this study, of the 100+ risk factors for violence that were studied, psychopathy was the strongest predictor of community violence. Importantly, even after statistically taking into account factors such as psychopathy and race, the amount of concentrated poverty in participants’ neighborhoods still significantly predicted violence. Whereas race did predict violence when considered on its own, the effect of race alone in predicting violence disappeared after statistically controlling for neighborhood disadvantage. That is, regardless of whether participants were Black or White, those who lived in highly disadvantaged neighborhoods were more likely to be violent. Although further investigation clearly is needed, these results highlight the importance of investigating cultural and social processes that may influence psychopathic traits.
References:
- Cooke,D.J.,Kosson,D.S。和Michie,C。(2001)。精神病和种族:高加索和非裔美国人参与者中精神病清单重新定义(PCL-R)的结构,项目和测试。心理评估,13,531-542。
- Cooke, D. J., & Michie, C. (1999). Psychopathy across cultures: North America and Scotland compared. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 108, 58-68.
- Cooke, D. J., Michie, C., Hart, S. D., & Clark, D. (2005). Searching for the pan-cultural core of psychopathic personality disorder. Personality and Individual Differences, 39, 283-295.
- McCoy,W。K.,&Edens,J。F.(2006)。黑白青年的精神病特征水平有所不同吗?精神病清单措施的荟萃分析。咨询与临床心理学杂志,第74页,第386-392页。
- Okazaki,S。,&Sue,S。(1995)。少数民族评估研究中的方法论问题。心理评估,7,367-375。
- Skeem, J. L., Edens, J. F., Camp, J., & Colwell, L. H. (2004). Are there ethnic differences in levels of psychopathy? A meta-analysis. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 505-527.
- Skeem, J. L., Edens, J. F., Sanford, G. M., & Colwell, L. H. (2003). Psychopathic personality and racial/ethnic differences reconsidered: A reply to Lynn (2002). Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 1439-1462.