Examining Triarchic Psychopathy Constructs in a Dutch Forensic Treatment Sample Using a Forensic Version of the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality Jacomina Gerbrandij 1 & David P. Bernstein 2 & Laura E. Drislane 3 & Vivienne de Vogel 4 & Marike Lancel 5 & Christopher J. Patrick 6 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract Psychopathy, as described by the triarchic model, encompasses three distinct phenotypes: boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. The current study sought to operationalize these in a sample of 100 Dutch male forensic-psychiatric patients with differing forms of personality pathology who participated in a multi-site randomized clinical trial. Using an established construct-rating ap- proach, triarchic scales were created using items from clinician-rated and self-report versions of the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP) adapted for forensic populations, the SNAP-F. Internal psychometric properties and criterion- related validity were evaluated. SNAP-F-Triarchic Meanness and Disinhibition scales showed acceptable internal consistencies, whereas the Boldness scales (which comprised fewer items) showed lower numbers. The scales showed associations with self- report and interview-based criterion measures largely in line with predictions, with higher validity for criteria assessed in the same measurement domain. Implications of findings for prediction of key outcomes in clinical settings are discussed, along with promising directions for future research. Keywords Psychopathy . Boldness . Meanness . Disinhibition . Forensic treatment Psychopathy is a clinical condition marked by persistent be- havioral deviancy coupled with affective and interpersonal features (Cleckley 1976 ; Hare 2003 ; Patrick 2018 ). Although studied extensively, researchers have not always agreed on what specific symptoms psychopathy encompasses and the ways in which it can be expressed. Whereas it has classically been viewed as a categorical syndrome, contempo- rary research indicates that psychopathy is better described as a configuration of distinct symptomatic or dispositional di- mensions (Skeem et al. 2011). This is evidenced by the fact that contemporary instruments for assessing psychopathy in- clude subscales for indexing distinct factors or subdimensions (see, e.g., Andershed et al. 2002; Hare 2003; Frick et al. 2014; for relevant reviews, see Patrick and Drislane 2015a, and Sellbom et al. 2018). To address issues of definition and multidimensionality, Patrick et al. (2009) formulated the triarchic model of psychopathy, which characterizes this con- dition in terms of dispositional constructs of boldness, mean- ness, and disinhibition. Rather than conceiving of psychopa- thy as a unitary syndrome or general (higher-order) construct, the triarchic model views it in terms of different configurations of core biobehavioral traits that give rise to differing clinical presentations. The current study undertook to quantify the triarchic trait constructs and examine their correlates in a fo- rensic inpatient sample using items from a version of the Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-019-09752-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Jacomina Gerbrandij jgerbrandij@fordham.edu 1 Department of Psychology, Fordham University, Dealy 226, 441 East Fordham Rd, Bronx, NY 10458, USA 2 Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200, MD Maastricht, The Netherlands 3 Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Rachel Upjohn Building, 4250 Plymouth Rd, Rm. 2434, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2700, USA 4 Van der Hoeven Kliniek, De Forensische Zorgspecialisten, PO Box 174, 3500, AD Utrecht, The Netherlands 5 GGZ Drenthe, Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, Dennenweg 9, 9404, LA Assen, The Netherlands 6 Florida State University, 1107 West Call Street, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-019-09752-z