Recent research suggests that the construct underlying the PCL-R is dimensional in nature, but a cut score of 30 has proven useful as a working definition of psychopathy. The PCL-R also has good generalizability across diverse forensic populations, although there may be sex, ethnic, and cultural differences in the way some features of psychopathy are manifested. The standard error of measurement (SEM) of the PCL-R total score is approximately 3 for a single rating and 2 for the average of two ratings.
The intra-class correlation (ICC) typically exceeds. Internal consistency is high (alpha coefficient is greater than. There is good evidence that the PCL-R is a very reliable instrument when administered and scored by trained and experienced raters.
Total scores can vary from 0 to 40 and reflect the degree to which the individual matches the prototypical psychopath. The PCL-R uses a semistructured interview, case history information, and specific scoring criteria to rate each item on a 3-point scale (0, 1, 2) according to the extent to which the criteria are judged to apply to a given individual. PCL-R Description and Psychometric Properties
Throughout, the scoring criteria have remained unchanged to ensure conceptual and measurement continuity. This was followed by a dramatic upsurge in the use of the instrument for both basic research and applied (clinical, forensic) purposes and the publication of a greatly expanded second edition in 2003, which contains data on more than 10,000 offenders and forensic psychiatric patients. With the subsequent accumulation of large amounts of empirical data, the criteria and accounts of the psychometric properties of the PCL-R were formally published in 1991. The PCL-R scoring criteria first were distributed to researchers in 1985. The latter is particularly important, given that self-disclosed information (e.g., interviews, self-reports) typically is subject to impression management and often unreliable, not only in offenders but also in the general population. Prison populations continue to offer several advantages for the study and measurement of psychopathy: high prevalence and the availability of extensive amounts of “hard” information about the individual. The selection of several items and the scoring protocols was influenced by the nature of the population with which the research was being conducted, namely incarcerated offenders. The development of the PCL-R (and its predecessor, the PCL) was based on a rich clinical tradition that included the writings of, among others, Benjaman Karpman, Silvano Arieti, William and Joan McCord, and, especially, Hervey Cleckley. There was little evidence that these methods were conceptually or empirically related to one another, with the result that many research findings obtained with one method could not be replicated with other methods. The PCL-R had its origins in the late 1970s at a time when a variety of clinical and self-report methods were being used to define what ostensibly was psychopathy.
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