Youth psychopathic traits inventory-short version: A further test of the internal consistency and criterion validity

Abstract

The Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory-Short Version (YPI-S; van Baardewijk et al., 2010) is a selfreport measure to assess psychopathic-like traits in adolescents. The aim of the present study is to investigate the factor structure, the internal consistency, and the criterion validity of the YPI-S in 768 Belgian community adolescents (45.4 % males). In general, our study supported the YPI three factor structure while relevant indices showed that the instrument is internally consistent. In addition, relations between the YPI-S total score and dimension scores on the one hand and external criterion measures (e.g. conduct problems and self-reported offending) on the other hand were generally in line with predictions. The present study replicated and substantially extended previous findings of the YPI-S in a sample of community youth. Future studies are needed to test whether findings from community samples can be replicated in clinical-referred and justiceinvolved boys and adolescents. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012.