Hancock✅

Question 1

Aim:

Answer 1

Test how crime narrative differs between psychopaths and non psychopathic murderers
-(examine features of language)

Question 2

Method:

Answer 2

A self report- face to face interviews

Question 3

Pps:

Answer 3

• 52pps
• 14 psychopaths (male)
• 38 non psychopathic murderers (male)
• mean age: 28.9 (14-50)

Question 4

Where was the prison?

Answer 4

Canada

Question 5

How many convicted of first degree murder/ second degree/ man slaughter/ not specified

Answer 5

8- first
32- second
10- manslaughter
2- not specified

Question 6

What measure was used to test for psychopath/language?

Answer 6

• Psychopathy checklist revised- used to asses pps against 20 different criteria
• scores out of 40 (30 or above was cut off point for psychopathy)

Question 7

Who carried out interviews?

Answer 7

Trained psychologists and researchers with coding experiences

Question 8

Did they check for internal reliability?

Answer 8

Yes, had a trained graduate re-code 10 results randomly

Question 9

What were pps asked to do?

Answer 9

Describe offences in detail whilst being recorded
Around 25 minutes each
Used open-end questions
Interviewers we’re blind to score
(Pps told aims and procedure of study at start)

Question 10

What was the interview transcribed and analysed with?

Answer 10

Wmatrix- used to analyse speech and semantics

Dictionary of Affect in Language- analysed emotional properties

Question 11

Positives of study:

Answer 11

• interviews- large amount of detail recorded (also qualitative data)
• quantitative data- easy to compare
• ecological validity- their own crimes (also interview was devised not to lead pps into answering in a certain way)
• good concurrent validity (same measures used)
• very reliable (replicable)
• high inter-rater reliability
• good ethics (privacy, fully informed consent, verbal brief at interview)

Question 12

Negatives of study:

Answer 12

• maybe too much detail collected in interviews? A lot to compare? Time?
• social desirability bias- wanted to seem remorseful?
• unrepresentative sample- all Canadian, male and volunteers- bias. (ethnocentric)

Question 13

Which sampling technique was used?

Answer 13

Self- selected