RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Sadism and psychopathy in violent and sexually violent offenders
JF Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
JO J Am Acad Psychiatry Law
FD American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
SP 23
OP 32
VO 27
IS 1
A1 SE Holt
A1 Meloy, JR
A1 S Strack
YR 1999
UL http://jaapl.org/content/27/1/23.abstract
AB A nonrandom sample (N = 41) of inmates from a maximum security prison were classified as either psychopathic or nonpsychopathic (using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R)) and violent or sexually violent. Sadism was measured using the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (MCMI-II) Scale 6B, the Personality Disorder Examination (PDE) items for sadistic personality disorder, and the sexual sadism criteria of DSM-IV. Psychopaths were found to be significantly more sadistic than nonpsychopaths (MCMI-II and PDE). Overall power was relatively high. Sadism did not differentiate the violent and sexually violent groups. A diagnosis of sexual sadism was too infrequent (n = 3) for meaningful statistical analysis. The trait measures of sadism and psychopathy measures (PCL-R, Factor 1 and Factor 2) significantly and positively correlated. Results provide further empirical validity for the theoretically proposed and clinically observed relationship between sadistic traits and psychopathic personality.