About the test
Psychopathy test
How bold, how mean and how impulsive are you compared with others? Nine traits grouped into the three sides of psychopathy in Patrick's triarchic model. Measures normal variation, not a diagnosis.
- 59 questions
- About 6 min
Questionnaire / instrument: Triarchic psychopathy profile (CAT-PD scales)
What does it measure?
Nine self-reported traits grouped around boldness, meanness and disinhibition. The questions cover areas such as callousness, aggression, planning, responsibility, risk-taking and anxiety.
Where does it come from?
The items come from CAT-PD static form v1.1 by Simms and colleagues, published through IPIP. We organize them using Patrick, Fowles and Krueger’s triarchic model as a conceptual framework.
How is the result calculated?
Keyed items form nine scale scores, which are combined into the three broader dimensions. Reference comparisons are estimated from published means and standard deviations.
What can the result tell you?
The mapping from CAT-PD scales to the triarchic dimensions is our own and has not been validated as a psychopathy instrument. This is not TriPM or PCL-R. It cannot diagnose psychopathy or assess whether someone is dangerous; percentiles are approximate.
Languages and adaptations
Some item translations are reused from our existing IPIP banks; other wording was translated for this site with AI assistance. Translation does not by itself establish that a scale has the same measurement properties in another language.
License and reuse
Public domainIPIP places its items and scales in the public domain. They may be used, copied, adapted and translated for commercial and non-commercial purposes without a fee or separate permission.
The terms below apply to the test materials. Articles, translations, software and our result descriptions may have separate terms.
Sources and further reading
Simms, L. J., Goldberg, L. R., Roberts, J. E., Watson, D., Welte, J., & Rotterman, J. H. (2011). Computerized adaptive assessment of personality disorder: Introducing the CAT–PD project. Journal of Personality Assessment, 93(4), 380–389. Patrick, C. J., Fowles, D. C., & Krueger, R. F. (2009). Triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy. Development and Psychopathology, 21(3), 913–938.