Joumal of Abnormal Psychology 2011, Vol. 120, No. 3, 758-764 © 2011 American Psychological Association 0021-843X/ll/$12.00 DOI: 10.IO37/a0O22477 BRIEF REPORT Psychopathic Traits From the Perspective of Self and Informant Reports: Is There Evidence for a Lack of Insight? Joshua D. Miller University of Georgia Shayne E. Jones University of South Florida Donald R. Lynam Purdue University It has been suggested that psychopathic individuals are incapable of providing valid reports on their own personality functioning because they are either unwilling (i.e., pathologically lie) or unable (i.e. lack insight) to do so. Despite the long-standing nature of this suggestion, almost no empirical research exists on this topic. In the current study, the authors examined the issue of psychopathy and insight by testing self and informant convergence and mean level differences across 3 indices of psychopathy in a community sample {N = 64). Self- and informant-report psychopathy scores were also examined inrelationto self and informant reports on traits from the Five-Factor Model (FFM). Convergence was strong across the 3 psychopathy indices and their respective factors (i.e., median r = .64), and there was only modest evidence that individuals rated themselves as less psychopathic than did informants. In addition, the same FFM domains—-low Agreeableness and Conscientiousness—characterized individuals with psychopathic traits regardless of reporter. Psychopathic individuals appear capable of reporting accurately on psychopathic traits when there are no direct conse- quences to accurate reporting (i.e., sentencing). It may be that the lack of concern for the consequences of these traits has been mistaken for a lack of insight into them. Keywords: psychopathy, insight, self-other agreement, Five-Factor model Much research in psychopathy is driven by two assumptions: psychopathic individuals (a) cannot or (b) will not provide valid information on their own personality traits and behavior. Cleckley (1941/1988), the father of the modem psychopathy construct, believed that that loss of insight was a central characteristic of psychopathic individuals. He suggested that "the psychopath lacks insight more consistently than some schizophrenic patients. He has absolutely no capacity to see himself as others see him" (p. 350). Cleckley described one specific patient as being unable to "size up normally what he bas done, what he is, and what he has been" (p. 353). Another core trait of psychopathy is thought to be untruthful- ness; Cleckley reported that "the psychopath shows a remarkable disregard for truth and is to be trusted no more in his accounts of the past than in his promises for the future or his statement of present intentions" (p. 341). Despite the significance of these assumptions for the under- standing of psychopathy, they have received little empirical atten- This article was published Online First March 7, 2011. Joshua D. Miller, Department of Psychology, University of Georgia; Shayne E. Jones, Department of Criminology and Department of Mental Health Law and Policy, University of South Florida; Donald R. Lynam, Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Joshua D. Miller, Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-3013. E-mail: jdmiller@uga.edu tion. One obvious way to examine the veridicality of reports by individuals with psychopathic traits is to compare their self- descriptions with the descriptions provided by informants; sub- stantial discrepancies between the two sources might indicate problematic levels of insight or deceitfulness. Comparing reports from self and informants allows for examinations of both relative (i.e., correlations across source) and absolute (i.e., mean level comparisons across source) convergences, which provide some- what different information. Relative agreement indicates whether psychopathic individuals are willing or capable of reporting higher levels of psychopathic traits in themselves, whereas absolute agreement speaks more directly to how accurate such reports are. Only one study has been conducted in which self and informant reports on psychopathy were compared; using the Psychopathy Q-Sort, Fowler and Lilienfeld (2007) found a small to moderate correlation (i.e., r = .32) between and a small mean difference {d = .33) across the self and informant reports. Unfortunately, the Psychopathy Q-Sort (Reise & Oliver, 1994) is infrequently used and employs an ipsative sorting procedure that differs from other psychopathy assessments; thus, it is difficult to know how these results will generalize to widely used assessments. Although there has been little empirical work in the area of psychopathy, a substantial literature exists on the degree of self- informant concordance for symptoms of personality disorders (PDs) and general personality traits. In their meta-analysis on self-other convergence for the PDs as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 758