an examination of the factor structure of the psychopathy checklist

who also concluded that antisocial behaviour is not crucial in female psychopathy.
Among their sample of adjudicated adult female homicide offenders, Weizmann-
Henelius and colleagues examined both the two- and three-factor models using CFA.
Given their conclusion that the three-factor model was the best fitting model among their
more serious homicide offender sample, it appears that there may be no difference in
which factor model is most appropriate across generally violent and more serious
offences such as homicide. However, if it is feasible to obtain access to a large sample
of female youth homicide offenders, researchers should aim to determine if this
assumption would be supported.
Further examination of the correlations between individual items and their factors
revealed that the prominent items include item 5: manipulation for personal gain, item 6:
lack of remorse, item 7: shallow affect, item 8: callous/lack of empathy, and item 16:
failure to accept responsibility for one’s behaviours. This suggests that these are the
features that strongly discriminate female youth who exhibit a high degree of
psychopathic traits from those exhibiting lesser degrees of psychopathic traits. Indeed,
these findings complement the research among adult female offenders. For instance,
Salekin and colleagues (Salekin et al., 1997; Salekin et al., 1998) found that
psychopathy in females is best conceptualized and assessed in terms of the affective
and interpersonal characteristics rather than overt antisocial behaviours. These
investigators, among others (Jackson et al., 2002; Vitale, Smith, Brinkley, & Newman,
2002; Warren et al., 2003; Weizmann-Henelius et al., 2010), suggest that affective
characteristics such as callousness, unemotionality, and a lack of empathy are more
relevant for assessing female psychopathy than are the antisocial criteria.
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