Date of Award

2004

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Previous research (Daugherty, Murphy, & Puagh, 2001) has suggested that the Sulliman Scale of Social Interest (SSSI) is an effective predictor of recidivism in criminal offenders. The purpose of the present study was to extend the previous investigation and to examine the relationship between the concepts of social interest and psychopathy and how each are related to the prediction of criminal behavior. The SSSI is based on Adler's conceptualization of social interest as concern for others and optimism with regard to one's view of the world. The Psychopathic Personality Inventory Short Form (PPI-SF) is based on Cleckley's notion of psychopathy as a construct characterized by core emotional deficits such as poverty of affect and incapacity to love. Specifically, SSSI scores and PPI-SF scores were examined as predictors of offender outcomes in the first six months following placement on probation. As hypothesized, the results indicated that both social interest, as measured by the SSSI, and psychopathy, as measured by the PPI-SF, were significantly correlated to post-incarceration offender status, with social interest negatively correlating with offender violations and psychopathy positively correlating with offender violations. The data also indicate that the PPI-SF is a better predictor of offender outcome than the SSSI and that the SSSI does not contribute significantly to better prediction than the PPI-SF alone. Discriminant analysis indicated that the PPI-SF was able to correctly identify 76.5% of the offenders in the sample on the basis of whether they committed another crime while they were placed on probation.

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