Spitefulness and psychopathy: A contribution for an Italian adaptation

Abstract

Introduction

Psychopathy has been individuated as an important predictor of criminal recidivism. As a consequence, a growing number of studies has examined factors associated with psychopathic traits in criminal population. While spitefulness has been associated with a range of destructive behaviors, there is a paucity of instruments that evaluate the spitefulness (Marcus & Zeigler-Hill, 2015).

Objective

Testing the validity and reliability of an Italian version of the Spitefulness Scale.

Aims

Correlate Spitefulness Scale scores and other indices of psychological functioning. We recruited an offenders sample (n = 400) and a community sample (n = 400). We administered the Spitefulness Scale (Marcus, 2014), along with the following measures: Dirty Dozen (Carmines & Zeller, 1979), Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004), and SRP (Hare, 1980).

Results

Offenders participants showed higher levels of spitefulness. Further, the construct validity of the scale was confirmed by associations with measures of psychopathy, emotion dysregulation, and interpersonal problems.

Conclusions

The use of the Italian version of the Spitefulness Scale seemed promising for the study of emotion recognition in both clinical and nonclinical samples.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.