Psychopathy, PTSD, and PCL-R in Female Prisoners: A Review
This paper critically reviews two studies concerning psychopathy measurement and its legal and clinical implications. The first study, by Blonigen et al. (2012), examines links between facets of psychopathy, potentially traumatic events, and PTSD among female prisoners, with borderline personality disorder traits as a mediating variable. The second study, by Cox et al. (2010), investigates whether the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) label biases mock jurors in capital sentencing decisions. For each study, the reviewer identifies methodological strengths and limitations, including sampling issues, exclusion criteria, and ecological validity concerns, particularly regarding the absence of juror deliberation in the mock trial design.
- Overview of Blonigen et al.: Summary of psychopathy, PTE, and PTSD findings
- Methodological Critique of Blonigen et al.: Sampling exclusions and PTE measurement concerns
- Overview of Cox et al.: PCL-R label effects on capital sentencing verdicts
- Methodological Critique of Cox et al.: Sample bias, exclusion criteria, and deliberation validity
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper applies a consistent critical lens to each study, evaluating both the internal logic of the research design and its external validity — a hallmark of strong review writing.
- The reviewer identifies specific exclusion criteria in each study (e.g., eliminating participants with psychosis or those who answered factual questions incorrectly) and explains precisely why those choices undermine the generalizability of findings.
- The critique of Cox et al. goes beyond surface-level sampling concerns to raise a substantive point about juror deliberation and interaction — showing the reviewer can identify what a study structurally cannot measure, not just what it measured imperfectly.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates methodological critique as a scholarly genre: summarizing a study's findings accurately before pivoting to targeted analysis of its design limitations. This technique requires the writer to understand a study well enough to identify internal contradictions, such as a psychopathology study that excludes participants with psychosis.
Structure breakdown
The paper is organized into two parallel units, each covering one study. Each unit opens with a summary of the study's purpose and findings, then shifts to a focused methodological critique. This parallel structure makes the argument easy to follow and implicitly invites comparison between the two studies' shared concern with the PCL-R as a measurement tool.
Overview of Blonigen et al.: Psychopathy, PTE, and PTSD in Female Prisoners
In their research, Blonigen et al. sought to examine the link between psychopathy and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as the potential mediating role of borderline personality disorder traits in female prisoners. Using a non-random sample of female prisoners, the researchers employed the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) to identify the facets of psychopathy and determined the associations between those markers and potentially traumatic events (PTE) and symptoms of PTSD.
What they found was that the Interpersonal and Affective facets of the PCL-R were unrelated to both PTE and PTSD, while the Lifestyle and Antisocial facets were each associated with PTE. The Antisocial facet was also associated with PTSD symptoms. Moreover, borderline personality disorder traits fully accounted for the association between the Antisocial facet and both PTE and PTSD, while the Lifestyle facet contributed incrementally to the prediction of PTE (Blonigen et al., 2012).
Methodological Critique of Blonigen et al.
There were several methodological issues with Blonigen's study. First, the researchers screened their study participants, eliminating individuals who were not scheduled for release and those who showed evidence of cognitive impairment, psychosis, or bipolar disorder (Blonigen et al., 2012). That selection process seems likely to skew results. It is not unusual for those identified disorders to co-exist with borderline personality disorder. Moreover, it raises an important question: how does one conduct a study focused on psychopathology while eliminating people with a prior history of psychosis? These conditions are frequent in the prison population, and excluding them from the study eliminates a significant portion of that population. As a result, the study's findings may offer an interesting starting point for future research but do not provide sufficient information about the average prison population.
Furthermore, there is a meaningful distinction between a potentially traumatic event and an event that actually triggers PTSD. Examining historical physical assault, assault with a weapon, captivity, sexual assault, and unwanted or uncomfortable sexual experiences represents a broad range of activities to link categorically to PTSD. In addition to interviewing subjects about these events, the researchers also reviewed their files for relevant history (Blonigen et al., 2012). While it is possible for someone to develop PTSD as the result of a childhood assault or an uncomfortable sexual experience, it is also possible that a person is no longer suffering from PTSD related to a historical event, or that PTSD never developed at all. Consequently, the utility of the PTE dimension for the study's purposes seemed questionable — except, perhaps, as a means of demonstrating that PTE could trigger borderline behavior in individuals predisposed to it.
Overview of Cox et al.: PCL-R Labels and Mock Juror Sentencing
Cox et al. sought to determine whether the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) had a prejudicial effect on mock jurors during the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial. Their results did not show prejudice toward defendants labeled as psychopaths by the PCL-R. Instead, mock jurors were most likely to sentence dangerous defendants to death regardless of the PCL-R label attached to those defendants. In fact, defendants considered a high risk of future violence but not labeled as psychopaths were most likely to receive a death sentence.
References
Blonigen, D. M., Sullivan, E. A., Hicks, B. M., & Patrick, C. J. (2012, January 23). Facets of psychopathy in relation to potentially traumatic events and posttraumatic stress disorder among female prisoners: The mediating role of borderline personality disorder traits. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026184
Cox, J., DeMatteo, D., & Foster, E. (2010). The effect of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised in capital cases: Mock jurors' responses to the label of psychopathy. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 28, 878–891.
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