(Individual differences) Hancock et al

Question 1

What is psychopathy?

Answer 1

-A neuropsychiatric disorder marked by deficient emotional responses, lack of empathy and poor behavioural controls, commonly resulting in persistent antisocial deviance and criminal behaviour

Question 2

What is the background theory?

Answer 2

-There is a relationship between language and thought
-Various views fall into 4 main categories: thought is dependent on and reflects thoughts, thought and language are initially separate activities but become joined, language and thought are one and the same
-Psychopaths have specific combinations of cognitive, social and emotional characteristics, differentiating them from general pop
-underlying cognitive and emotional processes can be revealed through subtle patterns in word choice
-quantitative word counts can be used as a tool in identification and examination of abnormal psychological processes
- psychopathy may reflect in idiosyncratic linguistic styles

Question 3

Background to the study?

Answer 3

-There has been little examination of speech associated with psychopaths who comprise about 1% of the pop
-Psychopaths have been seen to exhibit a selfish orientation and profound emotional deficit
-Researchers have found that the psychopaths diminished capability for neural sensibility has biological underpinnings
-Psychopaths found to have no intellectual deficit
-Previous studies found psychopaths’ language is less cohesive than non-psychopaths

Question 4

Aim(s)?

Answer 4

-To examine how features of language are used in crime narratives by psychopaths

Question 5

Method?

Answer 5

-Self report
-Research analysed transcripts of interviews using statistical text analysis
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Question 6

Sample?

Answer 6

-52 male murderers
-Recruited by volunteer sampling, classified as either psychopaths or non-psychopaths (control)

Question 7

Results?

Answer 7

Psychopaths:
-Were more likely to describe cause and effect relationships when describing their crime
-Used twice as much language relating to basic psychological and self preservation needs
-Past tense and psychologically distant language

Control group:
-Used language relating to social needs rather than basic needs

Question 8

Conclusion?

Answer 8

-Psychopaths use language in fundamentally different ways from non-psychopaths, with less focus on emotion and greater emphasis on meeting basic needs