Converging Evidence for the Latent Structure of Antisocial Personality Disorder Consistency of Taxometric and Latent Class Analyses

• Published in: Criminal justice and behavior Vol. 35; no. 3; pp. 284 - 293
• Main Authors: Marcus, David K., Ruscio, John, Lilienfeld, Scott O., Hughes, Kathleen T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA Sage Publications 01.03.2008
• Subjects: Antisocial personality disorder; Latent class analysis; Latent structures; Psychopathy; latent structure; antisocial personality disorder; taxometrics
• ISSN: 0093-8548; 1552-3594
• DOI: 10.1177/0093854807311679

The latent structure of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and psychopathy has been examined using both Meehl's taxometric method and other latent variable models, yielding results that have not been entirely consistent. However, in each instance, researchers used independent data sets for their analyses, obscuring whether the inconsistent findings resulted from the analytic method or from the study's methodology and data. A data set that had been used in a previous latent class analysis (LCA) of ASPD was examined using Meehl's taxometric procedures. Consistent with the prior LCA, the present analyses also supported a dimensional latent structure for ASPD. These converging findings from nonredundant data-analytic procedures provide additional evidence that ASPD is dimensional and exists along a continuum.