Michael J Vitacco
Biographic Data
| ID | 4126775 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael J Vitacco |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael J |
| FAMILY NAME | Vitacco |
| SIGNATURE | VITACCO M J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Augusta University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2371-4703 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Psychopathy and Self‐Construal
Three direct replication studies were conducted to investigate the association between psychopathy and self‐construal. Participants were undergraduate college students who completed two comprehensive measures of psychopathic traits used to represent the four‐factor conceptualization of psychopathy and the triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy. Participants also completed self‐report measures and a task‐based measure of independent, interdepe…
The Internet is a scary place
Violent rhetoric online is becoming increasingly relevant to the practice of forensic mental health assessment as examinee's virtual lives may transform into real‐world acts of violence. With the rise of a diverse subculture of violent online communities, the aim of the present study was to inform how concerns with online sources of collateral data and racial/ethnic biases may influence determinations of violence potential. Using an experimental …
Introduction to special issue on social media for forensic mental evaluations
This special issue of Behavioral Sciences & the Law presents six articles that focus on various issues related to social media in forensic mental health evaluations. These eclectic articles provide updated information about social media's use and navigating difficult ethical concerns. Ranging from violence risk assessment to disability evaluations, the up‐to‐date information in this special issue allows the forensic evaluator to be more prepared …
Attorneys, tell your clients to think before they post
Information from social media is used in evaluations of parental fitness with some regularity. Yet, research is lacking on perceptions of this information and no research has examined how social media data impacts forensic evaluators' opinions related to parental fitness. This study compared forensic evaluators' perceptions of data trustworthiness, usefulness, and initial opinion of parental fitness in a fictitious case in which parental fitness …
Psychopathy and callous-unemotional traits in adolescence
Conditional release and cannabis use
This article, which serves as a perspective review, delves into the complexities of cannabis use among individuals preparing for or already on conditional release (CR). These complexities include an association between cannabis use and mental illness and dealing with the fact that the use of illicit substances, such as cannabis, is against CR rules, leading to potential revocation. A focus of this article is the deleterious effects cannabis and s…
Risk assessment and provisional discharge
Limitations Using Neuroimaging to Reconstruct Mental State After a Crime
Neuroimaging offers great potential to clinicians and researchers for a host of mental and physical conditions. The use of imaging has been trumpeted for forensic psychiatric and psychological evaluations to allow greater insight into the relationship between the brain and behavior. The results of imaging certainly can be used to inform clinical diagnoses; however, there continue to be limitations in using neuroimaging for insanity cases due to l…
Reliability and validity of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised in the assessment of risk for institutional violence
A group of 12 authors (GA) shared a statement of concern (SoC) warning against the use of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991, 2003) to assess risk for serious institutional violence in US capital sentencing cases (DeMatteo et al., 2020). Notably, the SoC was not confined to capital sentencing issues, but included institutional violence in general. Central to the arguments presented in the SoC was that the PCL-R has poor pre…
The PCL–R and capital sentencing
DeMatteo et al. (2020a) published a Statement in this journal declaring that the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) “cannot and should not” be used in U.S. capital-sentencing cases to assess risk for serious institutional violence. Their stated concerns were the PCL-R’s “imperfect interrater reliability,” its “variability in predictive validity,” and its prejudicial effects on the defendant. In a Cautionary Note, we (Olver et al., 2020) raised…
Communicating violence risk during testimony
The legal system often charges forensic clinicians with the task of assisting the court in making decisions about a defendant’s risk for violence. The extent to which these evaluations are useful depends, in part, on how the results are communicated to and understood by the trier of fact. Using a sample of 155 participants who previously served as a criminal trial juror, this study examined the effects of various risk communication formats on par…
Legal and clinical issues regarding the pro se defendant
Defendants who attempt to represent themselves, or proceed pro se, make up less than 1% of felony cases. However, when the issue of competency to proceed pro se arises, it can present interesting questions and challenges not only for the defendant, but also for others involved with the trial process. In Indiana v. Edwards (2008), the U.S. Supreme Court permitted states to impose a higher standard of competency for defendants who wish to proceed t…
Predators and punishment
Psychopathy is characterized as an emotional disorder tightly woven with persistent antisocial behavior. Prevailing legal doctrine and social norms hold psychopaths responsible for their conduct and punishment legitimately flows to psychopaths who violate the law. Recent scholarship, however, has challenged that view by claiming the emotional and cognitive deficits inherent in psychopathy should preclude culpability for some psychopaths. This vie…
An examination of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act as applied to juveniles
The recently enacted Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act will expand and standardize the registration of adolescent sex offenders. To evaluate the effectiveness of this and similar legislation, the authors assessed 91 juvenile males who had been adjudicated for a sexual felony offense and 174 juvenile males who had no history of sexual offending with several risk measures. On admission to treatment, all participants were assessed with the …
Psychopathy and behavioral correlates of victim injury in serious juvenile offenders
The study examines delinquent behavior and psychopathy and assesses their relationship to victim injury in a population of 168 incarcerated juvenile delinquent males with lengthy histories of criminal and violent behavior. A series of multiple regressions found that 17% of the variance associated with level of victim injury was accounted for by a model that included the three‐factor model of the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version [Forth, Kosson…
An examination of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act as applied to juveniles
The recently enacted Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act will expand and standardize the registration of adolescent sex offenders. To evaluate the effectiveness of this and similar legislation, the authors assessed 91 juvenile males who had been adjudicated for a sexual felony offense and 174 juvenile males who had no history of sexual offending with several risk measures. On admission to treatment, all participants were assessed with the …
Reliability and validity of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised in the assessment of risk for institutional violence
A group of 12 authors (GA) shared a statement of concern (SoC) warning against the use of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991, 2003) to assess risk for serious institutional violence in US capital sentencing cases (DeMatteo et al., 2020). Notably, the SoC was not confined to capital sentencing issues, but included institutional violence in general. Central to the arguments presented in the SoC was that the PCL-R has poor pre…
Predators and punishment
Psychopathy is characterized as an emotional disorder tightly woven with persistent antisocial behavior. Prevailing legal doctrine and social norms hold psychopaths responsible for their conduct and punishment legitimately flows to psychopaths who violate the law. Recent scholarship, however, has challenged that view by claiming the emotional and cognitive deficits inherent in psychopathy should preclude culpability for some psychopaths. This vie…
Psychopathy and behavioral correlates of victim injury in serious juvenile offenders
The study examines delinquent behavior and psychopathy and assesses their relationship to victim injury in a population of 168 incarcerated juvenile delinquent males with lengthy histories of criminal and violent behavior. A series of multiple regressions found that 17% of the variance associated with level of victim injury was accounted for by a model that included the three‐factor model of the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version [Forth, Kosson…
An examination of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act as applied to juveniles
The recently enacted Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act will expand and standardize the registration of adolescent sex offenders. To evaluate the effectiveness of this and similar legislation, the authors assessed 91 juvenile males who had been adjudicated for a sexual felony offense and 174 juvenile males who had no history of sexual offending with several risk measures. On admission to treatment, all participants were assessed with the …
Predators and punishment
Psychopathy is characterized as an emotional disorder tightly woven with persistent antisocial behavior. Prevailing legal doctrine and social norms hold psychopaths responsible for their conduct and punishment legitimately flows to psychopaths who violate the law. Recent scholarship, however, has challenged that view by claiming the emotional and cognitive deficits inherent in psychopathy should preclude culpability for some psychopaths. This vie…
Communicating violence risk during testimony
The legal system often charges forensic clinicians with the task of assisting the court in making decisions about a defendant’s risk for violence. The extent to which these evaluations are useful depends, in part, on how the results are communicated to and understood by the trier of fact. Using a sample of 155 participants who previously served as a criminal trial juror, this study examined the effects of various risk communication formats on par…
Legal and clinical issues regarding the pro se defendant
Defendants who attempt to represent themselves, or proceed pro se, make up less than 1% of felony cases. However, when the issue of competency to proceed pro se arises, it can present interesting questions and challenges not only for the defendant, but also for others involved with the trial process. In Indiana v. Edwards (2008), the U.S. Supreme Court permitted states to impose a higher standard of competency for defendants who wish to proceed t…
Reliability and validity of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised in the assessment of risk for institutional violence
A group of 12 authors (GA) shared a statement of concern (SoC) warning against the use of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991, 2003) to assess risk for serious institutional violence in US capital sentencing cases (DeMatteo et al., 2020). Notably, the SoC was not confined to capital sentencing issues, but included institutional violence in general. Central to the arguments presented in the SoC was that the PCL-R has poor pre…
The PCL–R and capital sentencing
DeMatteo et al. (2020a) published a Statement in this journal declaring that the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) “cannot and should not” be used in U.S. capital-sentencing cases to assess risk for serious institutional violence. Their stated concerns were the PCL-R’s “imperfect interrater reliability,” its “variability in predictive validity,” and its prejudicial effects on the defendant. In a Cautionary Note, we (Olver et al., 2020) raised…
Limitations Using Neuroimaging to Reconstruct Mental State After a Crime
Neuroimaging offers great potential to clinicians and researchers for a host of mental and physical conditions. The use of imaging has been trumpeted for forensic psychiatric and psychological evaluations to allow greater insight into the relationship between the brain and behavior. The results of imaging certainly can be used to inform clinical diagnoses; however, there continue to be limitations in using neuroimaging for insanity cases due to l…
Conditional release and cannabis use
This article, which serves as a perspective review, delves into the complexities of cannabis use among individuals preparing for or already on conditional release (CR). These complexities include an association between cannabis use and mental illness and dealing with the fact that the use of illicit substances, such as cannabis, is against CR rules, leading to potential revocation. A focus of this article is the deleterious effects cannabis and s…
Risk assessment and provisional discharge
Attorneys, tell your clients to think before they post
Information from social media is used in evaluations of parental fitness with some regularity. Yet, research is lacking on perceptions of this information and no research has examined how social media data impacts forensic evaluators' opinions related to parental fitness. This study compared forensic evaluators' perceptions of data trustworthiness, usefulness, and initial opinion of parental fitness in a fictitious case in which parental fitness …
Psychopathy and callous-unemotional traits in adolescence
The Internet is a scary place
Violent rhetoric online is becoming increasingly relevant to the practice of forensic mental health assessment as examinee's virtual lives may transform into real‐world acts of violence. With the rise of a diverse subculture of violent online communities, the aim of the present study was to inform how concerns with online sources of collateral data and racial/ethnic biases may influence determinations of violence potential. Using an experimental …
Introduction to special issue on social media for forensic mental evaluations
This special issue of Behavioral Sciences & the Law presents six articles that focus on various issues related to social media in forensic mental health evaluations. These eclectic articles provide updated information about social media's use and navigating difficult ethical concerns. Ranging from violence risk assessment to disability evaluations, the up‐to‐date information in this special issue allows the forensic evaluator to be more prepared …
Psychopathy and Self‐Construal
Three direct replication studies were conducted to investigate the association between psychopathy and self‐construal. Participants were undergraduate college students who completed two comprehensive measures of psychopathic traits used to represent the four‐factor conceptualization of psychopathy and the triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy. Participants also completed self‐report measures and a task‐based measure of independent, interdepe…
Psychology (12 works) · Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending (8 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Criminology (5 works) · Medicine (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Psychiatry (4 works) · Psychopathy (4 works) · Social Psychology (4 works)