Using the Personality Assessment Inventory to predict male offenders' conduct during and progression through substance abuse treatment.

Prior research has supported the utility of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991, 2007) to predict various negative outcomes among offender samples, yet few studies have specifically examined its association with behavior in treatment. In this study, the PAI was administered to 331 male offenders court ordered into substance abuse treatment. Several theoretically relevant PAI scales (e.g., Antisocial Features, Borderline Features) predicted various forms of problematic conduct (e.g., disruptive behavior, aggression) and subjective and objective ratings of treatment progress. Although there was relatively limited evidence for the superiority of any one predictor over the others, the Aggression (AGG) scale demonstrated incremental validity above and beyond other indicators for general noncompliance and aggressive behavior. Interpersonal scales also predicted select treatment behavior while sharing relatively little common variance with AGG. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing lower order and higher order dimensions on the PAI and other measures.