Research is yet to examine whether the items of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI) function equally well across race/ethnicity and gender. The current study applies an item response theory analysis to detect differential item functioning (DIF) of the YPI subscale across White, Black, and Hispanic youth and males and females among a sample of justice-involved youth. Significant DIF was detected for several items between Black youth and White youth and Black youth and Hispanic youth. Few incidences of DIF emerged between White and Hispanic youth and between males and females. The findings suggest that subscales of the YPI provide more information for White and Hispanic youth compared with Black youth. They also suggest that while there was significant DIF in the difficulty of items, the direction of DIF did not substantially favor one group or another. Thus, the findings suggest that the YPI produces comparable estimates of psychopathic traits for females and males and for White and Hispanic youth. However, the results raise concerns about comparing YPI subscale scores between White and Black youth and Hispanic and Black youth. The findings have important implications for the use of the YPI subscales among diverse samples.

研究尚未检验青年心理变态特征量表 (YPI) 的项目是否在种族/民族和性别方面同样有效。当前的研究应用项目反应理论分析来检测涉及司法的青年样本中白人、黑人和西班牙裔青年以及男性和女性的 YPI 子量表的差异项目功能 (DIF)。在黑人青年和白人青年以及黑人青年和西班牙裔青年之间的几个项目中检测到了显着的 DIF。白人和西班牙裔青年之间以及男性和女性之间几乎没有发生 DIF。研究结果表明，与黑人青年相比，YPI 的分量表为白人和西班牙裔青年提供了更多信息。他们还表示，虽然项目的难度存在显着的 DIF，DIF 的方向并没有实质上有利于一个或另一个群体。因此，研究结果表明，YPI 对女性和男性以及白人和西班牙裔青年的精神病态特征进行了可比较的估计。然而，结果引起了人们对比较白人和黑人青年与西班牙裔和黑人青年之间的 YPI 子量表分数的担忧。这些发现对于在不同样本中使用 YPI 分量表具有重要意义。