Personality patterns among hospitalized vs. incarcerated psychopaths

Subjected MMPI profiles of 80 hospitalized and 80 incarcerated white, male psychopathic personalities to a formal clustering procedure from which five primary types emerged. These types differed along four dimensions of profile pattern, and patients were distinguished from prisoners by a greater frequency of types in which psychopathic features were combined with nonpsychopathic forms of psychopathology. A higher average profile elevation also was obtained for hospitalized than incarcerated Ss, although frequencies of common two-point codes failed to discriminate significantly between these two groups. The results were seen to highlight the heterogeneity of psychopathy, to illustrate the potential of comparative studies of similarly diagnosed Ss from different clinical populations for clarifying this diversity, and to support the practice of deriving MMPI profile types by empirical methods rather than the currently popular two-point code approach.