Hancock et al (2011) Flashcards
(Hancock et al) What is the aim of this study?
To investigate whether psychopaths use language in ways that are different from how non-psychopaths use language.
(Hancock et al) Describe the sample of this study.
52 male murderers from Canada who had admitted to their crimes and volunteered to take part in the study.
- 14 psychopaths
- 38 non-psychopaths
(Hancock et al) State 3 interpersonal traits in psychopaths.
- Inflated sense of self-worth
- Cunning/manipulative
- Lack of remorse/guilt
(Hancock et al) State 3 anti-social behaviour in psychopaths.
- Juvenile delinquency
- Poor behavioural control
- Promiscuity
(Hancock et al) What type of experiment was this?
Quasi
(Hancock et al) What was the independent variable in this experiment?
Whether the participant was a psychopath or not.
This made groups independent as you cannot take part in both conditions.
(Hancock et al) Describe the procedure.
Participants asked to describe their crime in as much detail as possible.
2 mins - 2 senior psychology graduates, 1 research assistant -all blind to psychopathy scores.
Narratives were audiotaped and then turned into transcripts that were as close to what was said as possible.
(Hancock et al) What were the 2 forms of computer-based analysis that the transcripts were subjected by?
Wmatrix & DAL
(Hancock et al) What does ‘Wmatrix’ do?
Compares speech, tags part of speech.
Compared all psychopath’s responses with all the non-psychopaths responses.
(Hancock et al) What does ‘DAL’ do?
Software analyses emotional properties of language.
Compared language used by each participant.
(Hancock et al) Findings: Describe was is meant by the term ‘instrumental language’.
The psychopaths used more subordinating conjunction, suggesting premeditated acts aimed at achieving specific goals.
(Hancock et al) Findings: Describe was is meant by the term ‘Hierarchy of Needs’.
Psychopaths used more words associated with satisfying low-level physiological and material needs, whereas non-psychopaths used more words relating to higher-level emotional/spiritual needs.
(Hancock et al) Findings: Emotional expression: Describe was is meant by the term ‘dysfluencies’.
Their speech contained 33% more ‘um’ and ‘ah’ phrases, reflecting the effort they were having to put in to come across positively to the interviewer.
(Hancock et al) Findings: Emotional expression: Describe was is meant by the term ‘psychological distancing’.
Used more words in the past tense and more articles, suggesting a distancing of themselves from the murder they had committed.
(Hancock et al) Findings: Emotional expression: Describe was is meant by the term ‘emotional content of language’.
It was found that the higher a person’s ‘Factor 1’ score ha been on the PCL-R, the lower they scored for pleasantness and intensity of emotional language.
(Hancock et al) What is the conclusion of this study?
The language that psychopaths use is also significantly more disfluent suggesting psychopaths seem to operate on a primitive but rational level.
(Hancock et al) Links to the Psychodynamic Perspective: Suggests differences in language are “likely beyond conscious control” - our behaviour is due to the ___________ ____.
unconscious mind
(Hancock et al) Links to the Psychodynamic Perspective: Suggests psychopaths are stuck at the lowest stage of ___ ___________.
ego development
(Hancock et al) Links to the Psychodynamic Perspective: Idea of psychological __________ could be a form of ___ defence mechanism.
distancing
ego
(Hancock et al) Links to the Psychodynamic Perspective: Says that prison stops psychopaths from being able to fulfil their ‘_____ and _____ seeking drives’ which is why their language is less ___________ pleasant.
basic
thrill
emotionally
(Hancock et al) Links to the Psychodynamic Perspective: One of the studies in the background to the study used _________ test which suggested psychopaths have little need to interact with others.
Rorschach
(Hancock et al) How does this study relate to the key theme of ‘measuring differences’?
Suggests that computer analysis could be used to analyse differences in features of language used.
(Hancock et al) How does this study relate to the area of individual differences?
Investigates how psychopaths differ from other criminals in their use of language (and how these differences could be measured).
(Hancock et al) How HAS our understanding of the key theme (measuring differences) been changed?
Suggests that instead of getting participants to complete self-report questions, you could use computer programmes to analyse differences between people.
