hancock Flashcards
aim of this study
to examine whether the language of psychopaths reflected, as predicted, an instrumental/ predatory world view, unique socioemotional needs and a poverty of effect
what is the method
semi structured and open ended questions (a self report method) which employed the step wise interview technique to gather data in relation to the language of psychopaths and none psychopaths who had comitted murder
what are the three language charactetistics of psychopaths
-their instrumental nature
-their unique material and socioemotional needs
-their emotional defecit
what is the sample
52 male murderers (14 psychopaths and 38 none psychopaths) incaracerated in canadian correctional faciliities who admitted their crime and volunteered for the study
what was the psychopathy assessment
measured using the psychology checklist. Characterised by 20 criteria scored from 0-2 maximum score 40
conducted by extensively trained prison psychologists or a well trained researcher
what happened during the interview process
-participants were verbally told the purpose and procedure
-interviewers were 2 senior psychology graduate students . none knew the psychopathy scores
-while been audio taped, particiapnts were asked to describe their homicide offences in as much detail as possible
-25 mins long
what happened after the interview
the narratives were transcribed and checked to ensure spelling errors were corrected, all interviewer comments deleted and proper nouns and abbreviations spelt out
what were the two text analysis tools were used
-the corpus analysis programme used to compare parts of speech and to analyse semantic concepts
-the dictionary of affect in language software programme was used to examine the affective tone of the words
explain the instrumental langauge analysis reults
psychopaths produced more subordinating conjunctions than controls eg. because, since, as
explain the hieracrhy of needs analysis results
psychopaths used twice as many words related to basic needs, including eating drinking and monetary resources when describing their murders than controls
controls used significantly more language related to social needs including family and religion
emotional expression of language results
-the degree to which the psychopaths had physiologially distanced themselves/ were simply detached from their homicide was examined through the use of the past and present form of verbs
-psychopaths used more past tense verbs than contols eg stabbed
-psycopaths language was slightly less fluent than controls
what are the conclusions of this study
-psychopaths give less emotionally intense descriptions of their crimes and use less emotionally pleasant language than none psychopaths
-psychopathic language was significantly less fluent than controls
-psychopaths are more likley to describe cause and effect relationships when describing their muder
weakness of the method
open ended interview is harder to replicate because when asked to describe their offences but the prompts used would be different based on the murder described.
Comparisons are also difficult to make as different aspects of the crime may have been described in different ways
ethical considerations
consent- volunteered
confidential
why does this study have high concurrent validity
high concurrent validity because the results of the test correspond to a previously established test. This study used previously established tests which are highly valid measures used to determine psychology and linguistic tools tested for validity and used in other research
