Developing and validating a Chinese version of the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality–Self-Report.

Studies have shown that previous psychopathy models may only address limited aspects of interpersonal and emotional deficits when being applied to the Chinese cultural context. Understanding cultural differences in the manifestation of the psychopathic personality requires a more comprehensive conceptual map that allows for examination of more detailed or nuanced aspects of psychopathy. The present study aimed to apply the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP) framework to the Chinese cultural context and developed a Chinese version of the Self-Report Inventory of CAPP (CAPP-SR). An initial pool of 231 items was developed in Study 1, and then was tested and validated in 2 large community-based samples reported in Study 2 (N = 478) and Study 3 (N = 450). The Chinese version of the CAPP-SR was developed based on item response theory and content evaluation, with the aim of maximizing the psychometric quality, comprehensiveness, and similarity of scales with the standard CAPP-SR that was developed in English-speaking samples. The Chinese version of the CAPP-SR showed promising psychometric properties, with convergent validity that was similar to that demonstrated in English-speaking samples. The results also highlighted that the CAPP-SR can address the aforementioned issue in earlier psychopathy measures by covering various symptoms of emotional and interpersonal deficits. Furthermore, the results revealed that the associations among the various interpersonal and emotional deficits may differ between Chinese and Western populations. The CAPP-SR allows for future research that will deepen our understanding of the links among characteristics of psychopathy for Chinese populations.