The Psychometric Properties and Utility of the Short Sadistic Impulse Scale (SSIS)

Sadistic personality disorder (SPD) has been underresearched and often misunderstood in forensic settings. Furthermore, personality disorders in general are the subject of much controversy in terms of their classification (i.e., whether they should be categorical or dimensional). The Sadistic Attitu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPsychological assessment Vol. 23; no. 2; pp. 523 - 531
Main Authors O'Meara, Aisling, Davies, Jason, Hammond, Sean
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States American Psychological Association 01.06.2011
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Classification
Construct Validity
Crime
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Female
Humans
Impulsive Behavior - psychology
Male
Measures (Individuals)
Middle Aged
Personality Disorders - diagnosis
Personality Disorders - psychology
Personality Inventory - standards
Personality Measures
Personality Problems
Psychometrics
Reproducibility of Results
Sadism - psychology
Validity
Young Adult
Online AccessGet more information
ISSN1040-3590
1939-134X
DOI10.1037/a0022400

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Summary:Sadistic personality disorder (SPD) has been underresearched and often misunderstood in forensic settings. Furthermore, personality disorders in general are the subject of much controversy in terms of their classification (i.e., whether they should be categorical or dimensional). The Sadistic Attitudes and Behaviors Scale (SABS; Davies & Hand, 2003; O'Meara, Davies, & Barnes-Holmes, 2004) is a recently developed scale for measuring sadistic inclinations. Derived from this is the Short Sadistic Impulse Scale (SSIS), which has proved to be a strong unidimensional measure of sadistic inclination. Through cumulative scaling, it was investigated whether the SSIS could measure sadism on a continuum of interest, thus providing a dimensional view of the construct. Further, the SSIS was administered along with a number of other measures related to sadism in order to assess the validity of the scale. Results showed that the SSIS has strong construct and discriminant validity and may be useful as a screening measure for sadistic impulse. (Contains 3 figures and 2 tables.)
ISSN:1040-3590
1939-134X
DOI:10.1037/a0022400