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- Dåderman, Anna Maria, 1953-
(författare)
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Personality traits and psychopathy (PCL-R) in male juvenile delinquents
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Abstract State-administered correctional institutions in Sweden take care of approximately 600 juvenile delinquents every year. The treatment for these institutionalized young people is based mainly on environmental programs and milieu therapy.Fifty-six conduct-disordered juvenile delinquents (mean age 17 years) from four institutions were studied with respect to their personality traits, and the prevalence of psychopathy (measured by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist – Revised, PCL-R). One objective was to study the reliability and validity of commonly used personality inventories. In particular, the validity of psychopathy-related personality traits, included in Schalling’s psychopathy model (1978), was examined by studying the relationships between personality traits and psychopathy (PCL-R), the occurrence of previous treatment occasions, and relapse into crime. Four groups, the delinquent participants, a group of high sensation-seekers (air force pilot recruits), normal male adolescent participants, and another group of normal young males, completed a number of personality inventories, which enabled us to obtain measures of personality traits. The personality inventories used were the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and the Zuckerman Sensation-Seeking Scales. In addition, the delinquent participants were rated on psychopathy according to the modified version of the PCL-R, designed to be used with young people (Fort, Hart, & Hare, 1990). Both variable-oriented (factor analysis, MANOVA) and person-oriented statistical methods (cluster analysis) were applied.As expected, most personality traits in the delinquent participants deviated from published norms and from our control groups. The delinquent participants showed a high level of pathology or vulnerability for developing mental disorders (such as substance abuse). About 60% of the delinquent participants had scores above 30 on the PCL-R, and were thus classified as psychopaths according to the manual. Further, 73% had scores between 27 and 40, indicating a high level of psychopathy. Delinquent participants showed a different pattern of sensation-seeking behavior than air force pilot recruits and normal adolescent participants, and differed also in other personality traits. They had a low level of socialization, indicating a lack of ability to take the role of the generalized other, and a tendency to impulsiveness, somatic anxiety and extraversion-sociability. The construct validity (convergent and divergent) of the KSP scales was found to be adequate. Some of the personality traits in delinquent participants, however, showed a different correlation pattern than that found in noncriminal people. Some of the basic scales from the KSP had high reliability, but many were not reliable when used on delinquent participants. Four factors were extracted using the maximum likelihood method. No significant correlations were found between the personality scale scores and the PCL-R scores. Finally, cluster analysis of the reliable and valid psychopathy-related personality scales from the KSP (Impulsiveness, Monotony avoidance, Socialization, Verbal aggression, and Somatic anxiety) identified seven different clusters of delinquent participants.The uncertain validity of some personality traits (e.g., psychoticism or detachment), the poor reliability of many of the KSP scales (e.g., Guilt, Suspicion, and Inhibition of aggression) when used on this population, together with some minor limitations of the studies (e.g., sample size) are discussed.In conclusion, the high prevalence of psychopathy in the present sample of male delinquent participants may have important clinical treatment implications, particularly since some researchers have suggested that milieu therapy increases relapse rates into crime in adult psychopaths. Hopefully, appropriate assessment of personality traits and psychopathy (in addition to obvious routine assessments of mental disorders, such as substance abuse or disabilities such as dyslexia), supervision, and the implementation of effective correctional programs, may prevent young people with deviant personalities from aggravating their deviant style of living. Key words: Personality traits, psychopathy (PCL-R), juvenile delinquents, reliability, validity, assessment.
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| 2. |
- Lind, Lars, et al.
(författare)
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Heterogeneous contributions of change in population distribution of body mass index to change in obesity and underweight NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC)
- 2021
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Ingår i: eLife. - : eLife Sciences Publications Ltd. - 2050-084X. ; 10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in different regions using data from 2896 population-based studies with 187 million participants. Changes in the prevalence of underweight and total obesity, and to a lesser extent severe obesity, are largely driven by shifts in the distribution of BMI, with smaller contributions from changes in the shape of the distribution. In East and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the underweight tail of the BMI distribution was left behind as the distribution shifted. There is a need for policies that address all forms of malnutrition by making healthy foods accessible and affordable, while restricting unhealthy foods through fiscal and regulatory restrictions.
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| 4. |
- Strand, Susanne, 1972-
(författare)
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Violence risk assessment in male and female mentally disordered offenders : differences and similarities
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- When assessing the risk of violence, increasing interest has been shown in bringing science and practice closer together. Moving from clinical intuition in the first generation of risk assessment via actuarial scales in the second generation to the structured professional judgments where risk assessments are today produces better, more valid results when assessing the risk of violence. One of the best predictors of violence is gender. Approximately 10% of the violent criminality can be attributed to women; even so, it is increasing, especially among young women. It is therefore important to examine risk assessments from a gender perspective. Another important factor when assessing the risk of violence is psychopathy and there are indications that there might be gender differences in this diagnosis. Thus, a special interest has been focused on psychopathy in this thesis. The purpose with this work is to explore the similarities and differences in assessing risk for violence in male and female mentally disordered offenders, while the overall aim is to validate the violence risk assessment instrument HCR-20 for Swedish offender populations. The risk assessments for all six studies in this thesis were made by trained personnel using the HCR-20 instrument, where psychopathy was diagnosed with the screening version of the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL:SV). The study populations were both male and female mentally disordered offenders in either the correctional or the forensic setting.The findings show that both the validity and the reliability of the HCR-20 and the PCL:SV were good and the clinical and risk management subscales were found to have better predictive validity than the historical scale. Another finding was that there were more similarities than differences between genders in the HCR-20, while the opposite applied to the PCL:SV, where the antisocial behavior was performed in a different manner. Moreover, it was found that the gender of the assessor might be a factor to take into account when assessing the risk of violence in women, where the recommendation was that at least one assessor should be female. The conclusions were that the HCR-20 and the PCL:SV can be used In Swedish offender populations with valid results. For female offenders, there are differences in the antisocial behavior that is assessed in order to diagnose psychopathy and these differences tend to underestimate psychopathy among female offenders. Furthermore, the gender of the assessor might be of greater importance than has previously been realized. The overall conclusion was that this thesis supports the structural professional judgment method of making risk assessments in order to prevent violence in the community.
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