Yiyun Shou

Evaluating the Construct Validity of the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale in China

The Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy (LSRP) scale is an efficient measure of psychopathy with promising psychometric properties. However, the cross-cultural utility of the LSRP has not been well documented, and no study has explored measurement invariance of the LSRP across East Asian and North American samples. We translated the LSRP into Chinese (Study 1) and investigated the validity and reliability of the Chinese LSRP using a sample of 226 university students in China (Study 2). Confirmatory factor analyses supported Brinkley, Diamond, Magaletta, and Heigel’s (2008) three-factor model (Egocentricity, Callousness, and Antisocial). Evidence for configural and partial metric (but not scalar) invariance of the factor structure was observed when comparing Chinese and U.S. university samples. However, response thresholds were significantly different between the two samples. The Chinese LSRP scores also demonstrated encouraging convergent and discriminate validity in terms of their associations with external criteria. We discuss the implications for cross-cultural assessment of psychopathy.

Evaluating Predictors of Dispersion: A Comparison of Dominance Analysis and Bayesian Model Averaging

Conventional measures of predictor importance in linear models are applicable only when the assumption of homoscedasticity is satisfied. Moreover, they cannot be adapted to evaluating predictor importance in models of heteroscedasticity (i.e., dispersion), an issue that seems not to have been systematically addressed in the literature. We compare two suitable approaches, Dominance Analysis (DA) and Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA), for simultaneously evaluating predictor importance in models of location and dispersion. We apply them to the beta general linear model as a test-case, illustrating this with an example using real data. Simulations using several different model structures, sample sizes, and degrees of multicollinearity suggest that both DA and BMA largely agree on the relative importance of predictors of the mean, but differ when ranking predictors of dispersion. The main implication of these findings for researchers is that the choice between DA and BMA is most important when they wish to evaluate the importance of predictors of dispersion.

Translation and Validation of the Chinese Versions of the Suicidal Ideation Attributes Scale, Stigma of Suicide Scale, and Literacy of Suicide Scale.

ABSTRACT This article reports the validation of the Chinese versions of the Suicidal Ideation Attributes Scale (SIDAS), the short form of Stigma of Suicide Scale (SOSS), and the short form of Literacy of Suicide Scale (LOSS) among 57 Chinese and English bilinguals and 224 Chinese university students. All the translated scales showed high correlations with the original versions. The translated SIDAS and refined SOSS demonstrated robust factor structures, good internal consistency, and convergent validity. Chinese students with self-reported depression symptoms tended to have higher glorification of suicide and lower suicide literacy. These brief scales fill an important gap in evaluating suicide outcomes in Chinese-speaking societies.

Effects of question formats on causal judgments and model evaluation

Evaluation of causal reasoning models depends on how well the subjects’ causal beliefs are assessed. Elicitation of causal beliefs is determined by the experimental questions put to subjects. We examined the impact of question formats commonly used in causal reasoning research on participant’s responses. The results of our experiment (Study 1) demonstrate that both the mean and homogeneity of the responses can be substantially influenced by the type of question (structure induction versus strength estimation versus prediction). Study 2A demonstrates that subjects’ responses to a question requiring them to predict the effect of a candidate cause can be significantly lower and more heterogeneous than their responses to a question asking them to diagnose a cause when given an effect. Study 2B suggests that diagnostic reasoning can strongly benefit from cues relating to temporal precedence of the cause in the question. Finally, we evaluated 16 variations of recent computational models and found the model fitting was substantially influenced by the type of questions. Our results show that future research in causal reasoning should place a high priority on disentangling the effects of question formats from the effects of experimental manipulations, because that will enable comparisons between models of causal reasoning uncontaminated by method artifact.

Development and Validation of the Chinese Triarchic Psychopathy Measure

The nature of psychopathy is not well understood in East Asian cultures, partially due to a lack of an established measurement of this important construct. This study developed and validated a Chinese-language version of the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM) based on Patrick et al.s (2009) triarchic model of psychopathy. Study 1 described the translation of the Chinese TriPM and demonstrated that the Chinese version of the TriPM is equivalent to the original English version in linguistic meaning. Study 2 examined the construct validity of the Chinese TriPM in a Chinese student sample. The TriPM evinced acceptable reliability and promising validity. Moreover, cross-cultural equivalence was examined by relative associations for the TriPM with the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale across the Chinese sample and a comparable United States student sample. Results revealed that the test bias in the strength of associations, regression intercepts, and slopes was mostly absent across the two samples.

Asymmetries in Responses to Attitude Statements: The Example of "Zero-Sum" Beliefs.

While much has been written about the consequences of zero-sum (or fixed-pie) beliefs, their measurement has received almost no systematic attention. No researchers, to our awareness, have examined the question of whether the endorsement of a zero-sum-like proposition depends on how the proposition is formed. This paper focuses on this issue, which may also apply to the measurement of other attitudes. Zero-sum statements have a form such as “The more of resource X for consumer A, the less of resource Y for consumer B.” X and Y may be the same resource (such as time), but they can be different (e.g., “The more people commute by bicycle, the less revenue for the city from car parking payments”). These statements have four permutations, and a strict zero-sum believer should regard these four statements as equally valid and therefore should endorse them equally. We find, however, that three asymmetric patterns routinely occur in peoples endorsement levels, i.e., clear framing effects, whereby endorsement of one permutation substantially differs from endorsement of another. The patterns seem to arise from beliefs about asymmetric resource flows and power relations between rival consumers. We report three studies, with adult samples representative of populations in two Western and two non-Western cultures, demonstrating that most of the asymmetric belief patterns are consistent across these samples. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this kind of “order-effect” for attitude measurement.

Adapting to an Uncertain World: Cognitive Capacity and Causal Reasoning with Ambiguous Observations.

Ambiguous causal evidence in which the covariance of the cause and effect is partially known is pervasive in real life situations. Little is known about how people reason about causal associations with ambiguous information and the underlying cognitive mechanisms. This paper presents three experiments exploring the cognitive mechanisms of causal reasoning with ambiguous observations. Results revealed that the influence of ambiguous observations manifested by missing information on causal reasoning depended on the availability of cognitive resources, suggesting that processing ambiguous information may involve deliberative cognitive processes. Experiment 1 demonstrated that subjects did not ignore the ambiguous observations in causal reasoning. They also had a general tendency to treat the ambiguous observations as negative evidence against the causal association. Experiment 2 and Experiment 3 included a causal learning task requiring a high cognitive demand in which paired stimuli were presented to subjects sequentially. Both experiments revealed that processing ambiguous or missing observations can depend on the availability of cognitive resources. Experiment 2 suggested that the contribution of working memory capacity to the comprehensiveness of evidence retention was reduced when there were ambiguous or missing observations. Experiment 3 demonstrated that an increase in cognitive demand due to a change in the task format reduced subjects’ tendency to treat ambiguous-missing observations as negative cues.

Factor structure and construct validity of the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP) in a sample of Chinese male inmates.

The current study examined the factor structure and convergent and discriminant validity of the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy scale (LSRP) in Chinese male inmates (N = 437). The original 2-factor model, the revised 2-factor model, and the 3-factor model were tested through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Additionally, convergent and discriminant validity were examined via correlational and multiple linear regression analyses between LSRP factors and external criterion variables. Results showed that the 3-factor model fit the data better than the 2-factor model. The 3-factor model also showed reasonable convergent and discriminant validity. The findings were consistent with previous studies and suggested that the LSRP can be an effective self-report measure for assessing psychopathy in China.

Elaborating on the Construct Validity of Triarchic Psychopathy Measure in Chinese Clinical and Nonclinical Samples.

The contemporary knowledge of the construct and operationalization of psychopathy in East Asian countries is still limited. The present paper examines the validity and applicability of the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM) based on the triarchic model of psychopathy in Chinese clinical and nonclinical samples. The results of Study 1 using a psychiatric patient sample (N = 193) showed that the pattern of associations between the TriPM scales (Boldness, Meanness, and Disinhibition) and the 3 factors (Egocentricity, Callous, and Antisocial) of the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale were similar to previous studies using English-speaking samples. Study 2 examined the construct validity of the TriPM with the inclusion of culturally adapted measures as external criteria in a university sample (N = 311). The TriPM Boldness scale was uniquely associated with fearlessness, whereas TriPM Disinhibition was associated with risky behaviors. TriPM Meanness significantly correlated with a Chinese interpersonal construct, Renqing, which is a social norm of interpersonal affect and relations. Cross-cultural implications for psychopathy are discussed.

Psychometric Properties of the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure: An Item Response Theory Approach.

There is cumulative evidence for the cross-cultural validity of the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM; Patrick, 2010) among non-Western populations. Recent studies using correlational and regression analyses show promising construct validity of the TriPM in Chinese samples. However, little is known about the efficiency of items in TriPM in assessing the proposed latent traits. The current study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Chinese TriPM at the item level using item response theory analyses. It also examined the measurement invariance of the TriPM between the Chinese and the U.S. student samples by applying differential item functioning analyses under the item response theory framework. The results supported the unidimensional nature of the Disinhibition and Meanness scales. Both scales had a greater level of precision in the respective underlying constructs at the positive ends. The two scales, however, had several items that were weakly associated with their respective latent traits in the Chinese student sample. Boldness, on the other hand, was found to be multidimensional, and reflected a more normally distributed range of variation. The examination of measurement bias via differential item functioning analyses revealed that a number of items of the TriPM were not equivalent across the Chinese and the U.S. samples. Some modification and adaptation of items might be considered for improving the precision of the TriPM for Chinese participants.