Questioning the Validity of the Malevolent Creativity Behavior Scale (MCBS): Lots of Malevolence, Little Creativity?

Strong and growing interest in Malevolent Creativity has created a need for valid and reliable measures of, among other things, malevolent creative ideation. The Malevolent Creativity Behavior Scale (MCBS) was created in response to weaknesses identified in earlier studies of malevolent creativity. However, concerns over the face validity of the MCBS, coupled with an increasing popularity of the scale in empirical studies, prompted an examination of the construct and concurrent (i.e. predictive) validity of the MCBS. The results of this study suggest that the MCBS has poor validity: it measures neither creative nor malevolent ideation sufficiently well to warrant its use in empirical studies of malevolent creativity. These findings caution against the uncritical use of the MCBS and underscore the need for new instruments, and approaches, that better measure the intersection of novelty, effectiveness and harmful intent.