Hancock Flashcards
What is the theme of Hancock ?
Individual differences - measuring disorders.
Traits of psychopathy
-Inability for personal relationships
-callous disregard for others
-extreme egocentricity
-lack of remorse or conscience
-narcissism
What are disfluencies ?
Emotionally coloured air speech and use of past/presence tense reveal personality.
What do psychopaths show abnormally high levels of ?
Show abnormally high levels of selfishness and lack of conscious.
What did Porter et al find ?
Offenders in Canadian penal system were x2.5 more likely than non psychopaths to be successful in applications.
What is Maslow Hierarchy of Needs ?
-Sel actualisation
-esteem
-love and belonging
-safety needs
-Physical needs
Aim of Hancock
Use text analysis to analyse language characteristics of psychopaths in describing their violent crimes.
Three sub-aims of Hancock
1) instrumental/ predatory world view (clauses)
2)unique socioemotional needs
3)poverty of affect
What type of experiment is Hancock
Quasi experiment
What were the IV in Hancock ?
psychopath or non-psychopath
What was DV in Hancock ?
measures of language from text.
What experimental design was Hancock ?
independent measures design
What type of interviews did Hancock use ?
semi-structured interviews.
What was the sample of Hancock ?
52 male murderers in Canadian correctional facilities, who volunteered to take part. 38 were non-psychopaths.
No difference in type of murder in terms of age and time since crime committed.
What did Hancock use to asses psychopathy ?
PCL-R = 20 criteria scored from 0-2 with max score of 40.
25+ would indicate psychopathy.
What was text analysis in Hancock ?
WMatrix = classifying types of words (comparing of speech)
What was the dictionary of affect ?
classified emotional content (tone of word)
Procedure of Hancock (PCL-R)
-PCL-R was completed by trained prisoners psychologist .
Procedure of Hancock (interview)
interviews were audiotaped and puts were told to study to examine manner in which they recall their offence.
Procedure of Hancock (stepwise technique)
Describe their offence in as much detail from beginning to end. Conducted by 2 senior psychologist - one blind.
Lasted 25 min
Transcribed including disfluencies.
Verbally debriefed and described their offence.
Results of Hancock relating to aim 1
-No significant difference in number of words used.
-Instrumental language analysis produces more subordinating conjunctions suggests they were describing cause and effect.
Results of Hancock relating to aim 2
Hierarchy of needs analysis = x2 more basic need words than non psychopaths.
-Non psychopaths talk about social needs.
-Emotional expression in psychopaths showed more past tense and fewer present tense
How does Hancock link to individual differences approach ?
Focusses on trying to measure differences, through text analysis tools to diagnose psychopathy and how the 2 groups differ.
