Much literature into psychopathy has utilised self-report measures (like the Levenson’s Self
Report Psychopathy Scale) to evaluate psychopathy levels. Much criticism of self-report
measures is seen in the literature across many domains – including clinical use scales (like the
Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale; DASS) – because individuals are typically quite poor at
self-reflection.
The concerns with using such self-report measures in psychopathy research may not only
result from potentially poor insight, but also because of the nature of the trait itself.
Psychopathy is considered as part of the “Dark Triad” (with Narcissism and Machiavellianism
making up the other two corners). The three traits share significant commonalities and this
may well contribute to other reasons why self-report measures are problematic for use in this
domain – specifically because of the behaviours typically associated with narcissism