Hancock Flashcards
What does the study investigate about the relationship between speech and thought?
Whether the way people speak reflects the way people think and their underlying personality
What specific emotional characteristic is often lacking in psychopaths?
Lack of emotion and inappropriate emotion
What does recent research suggest can be learned from examining psychopaths’ language?
Insights into their behavior
What is predicted about psychopathic speech in relation to their worldview?
It will reflect an instrumental/predatory worldview
What is the aim of the study regarding psychopathic language?
To examine the features of crime narratives provided by psychopathic murderers using statistical text analysis
What type of tool was used to examine subtle aspects of psychopathic language?
A computerized tool
What method was used in this study?
Content analysis
How many participants were in the psychopath murderer group?
14
How many participants were in the non-psychopath murderer group?
38
What tool was used to determine psychopathy?
The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R)
What does the PCL-R measure?
Characteristic traits of psychopaths such as superficial charm
What linguistic analysis tool was used?
Wmatrix
What does the Wmatrix tool examine?
Parts of speech and semantic content
What tool was used to examine the emotional characteristics of narratives?
Dictionary of Affect and Language (DAL)
What type of descriptors did psychopaths use more frequently?
Rational cause-and-effect descriptors (e.g.
What did psychopaths focus on in their narratives?
Material needs (food
What did psychopaths have fewer references to in their narratives?
Social needs (family
What type of speech disfluencies did psychopaths use more frequently?
‘Eh’
What does the increased use of disfluencies indicate?
That describing an emotional event was difficult for them
What verb tense did psychopaths use more frequently?
Past tense
What verb tense did psychopaths use less frequently?
Present tense
What does the use of past tense indicate?
Greater psychological detachment from the incident
How was the emotional intensity of psychopaths’ language described?
Less emotionally intense
What do the language differences support?
The notion that psychopaths operate on a primitive but rational level
What is important to collect to facilitate the identification of a psychopath?
As much language as possible
What should interviews with suspected psychopaths be used for?
Recorded for analysis
