Athar et al. (see record 2027-45295-001) offer a critique of the Psychopathic Boldness Scale (see record 2025-96918-001), highlighting what they argue are both conceptual and empirical limitations of this new operationalization of the triarchic model's construct of boldness. In this reply, we demonstrate that their theoretical claims are based on a mischaracterization of the triarchic model, in which they purport that boldness should be orthogonal to the triarchic construct of meanness. We also provide additional empirical analyses suggesting that Athar et al. are incorrect in their characterization of the extent to which the correlates of the Psychopathic Boldness Scale initially described by Marcus et al. (2025) suggest that it is a de facto operationalization of meanness (rather than boldness). We conclude with suggestions for additional research with the Psychopathic Boldness Scale that would better inform our understanding of the nomological network of this new scale, such as examining correlations with constructs associated with narcissism and with psychophysiological measures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Marcus et al. (Mon,) studied this question.