| What is a psychopath? | - Someone who has a selfish orientation + profound emotional deficit (e.g. no empathy) |
| + Background to the study | - A computerised analysis of language produced by psychiatric patients revealed fewer words pertaining to optimism, basic cognitive functions, references to the future and communication with others compared to normal people. 1% of the general population is a psychopath but only 15-25% of male offenders end up in federal correctional settings e.g. prison |
| Main characteristics of a psychopath | - Don't respond to emotional cues in same way to normal people
- Emotional deficit
- Appear selfish
- Manipulate - false emotions
- Little or no conscience |
| Measuring psychopathy | - Checklist made by Robert Hare
- Called Psychopathy Checklist - Revised (PCL-R)
- Uses 20 criteria, each scored from 0-2 (max score of 40). |
| The 2 categories of Robert Hare's checklist | - Asses interpersonal and affective traits (e.g. superficial charm)
- Assess anti-social traits (e.g. impulsivity and irresponsibility) |
| Aim of Hancock's study | - To examine language characteristics of psychopaths (when describing their violent crimes) on 3 major characteristics |
| Hypothesis 1 of Hancock's study? (instrumental language analysis) | - Psychopaths will use more subordinating conjunctions |
| Subordinating conjunctions meaning | (e.g. 'because' , 'since' , 'as' , 'so that') |
| Explain hypothesis 1 (psychopaths use more subordinating conjunctions) | - Words associated with cause and effect statements
- Would suggest their crimes are pre-meditated + motivated |
| Maslow's hierarchy of needs | - Theory about human motivation
- Psychopaths tend to focus on 'basic/material needs' compared to higher needs like relationships |
| Hypothesis 2 of Hancock's study (hierarchy or needs) | - Psychopaths will use more references towards physiological and material needs such as food, drink, clothing |
| Hypothesis 3 of Hancock's study (emotional expression in language) | - Psychopaths would produce fewer and less intense emotional words
- More disfluencies that reflects psychological 'distancing' |
| Example of distancing | - Use of past tense to make yourself seem further away from something |
| Explain hypothesis 3 | - Psychopaths have a deficit in their ability to experience emotions themselves + to recognise them
- Have an increased cognitive load trying to describe what had happened in an appropriate manner |
| Give some examples of disfluencies in speech | - 'Um', 'Uh' |
| Concrete nouns | - Things you can experience through your 5 senses (e.g. pencil) |
| Research method used in Hancock's study | - Quasi experiment |
| IV and DV | IV - whether someone was a psychopath or not
DV - language characteristics of psychopath |
| Describe the sample in Hancock's study | - 52 men
- In Canadian prison for murder
- All admitted their crime
- Volunteer sampling
- Mean age, 28.9 years |
| Number of psychopaths/non-psychopaths | - Psychopaths - 14
- Non-psychopaths - 38 |
| Stage 1 of Hancock's procedure | - Assessing the participants levels of psychopathy |
| How was psychopathy measured in the study? | - Using the PCL-R
- By rating 20 criteria on a scale of 0-2 (max score 40) |
| What score will someone receive a clinical diagnosis of psychopathy from the PCL-R? | - 30 or above |
| Stage 2 of Hancock's study | - Interviews with the participants
- 25 minutes |
| Who conducted the interviews? | - 2 senior psychology graduates and one completely blind to psychopathy scores |
| Questions in interview | - To describe their homicide offence in as much detail as possible |
| Stage 3 of Hancock's study | - Analysis of transcripts from the interviews |
| What was used to analyse the transcripts? | - Wmatrix and Dictionary of Affect in Language (DAL) |
| How did the wmatrix analyse speech? | - The body of speech was brought together and analysed as one |
| What did the wmatrix do to compare the speech? | - It tags part of speech into their categories (noun, verb, adjective) - uses context to help |
| What did the DAL analyse? | - The software analysed the emotional properties of language |
| The emotional properties of language from the analysis using the DAL | - Positive v Negative
- Low v High intensity
- Low v High imagery |
| What was scored from the DAL? | - Pleasantness and intensity of emotional language for each P's statement |
| Findings that support hypothesis 1 (instrumental language analysis) | - Psychopaths produced significantly more subordinating conjunctions than the non psychopaths |
| Percentage of the words used by psychopaths were subordinating conjunctions (vs non psychopaths) | - 1.82% (psychopaths) vs 1.54% (non-psychopaths) |
| Findings that support hypothesis 2 (hierarchy of needs analysis) | - Psychopaths used significantly more words connected to physiological needs
- Compared to the non psychopaths who used more words connected to social needs |
| Findings that support hypothesis 3 in terms of emotional content | - DAL scores revealed no differences between the two groups |
| Findings that support hypothesis 3 in terms of disfluencies | - Psychopaths used 33% more disfluencies than non psychopaths |
| Findings that support hypothesis 3 in terms of psychological distancing | - Psychopaths used more past tense than non psychopaths |
| Ethical guidelines upheld | - No deception, consent, confidentiality |
| Ethical guidelines not upheld | - No mention of withdrawal
- Ps could have been feeling uncomfortable, not sure whether they could withdraw from the study or not |
| Were the procedures controlled, standardised and replicable? (internal reliability) | - Same interview procedure and same computer program used, consistent |
| Does this study succeed in telling us about psychopaths' use of language? (internal validity) | - Not necessarily as they were only asking to give accounts of their murder and may have been testing their levels of education/intellect |
| Can the sample be generalised from? (external validity) | - The sample was relatively small so we can't generalise the findings to all people and also all criminals |
| Was the sample large enough to suggest a consistent effect? (external reliability) | - Yes in terms of people convicted for homicide but not for all psychopaths and non psychopaths |
| Overall findings | - Psychopaths tend to focus more on psychological needs
- Psychopaths tended to distance themselves from their homicide and used less emotionally intense language
- Psychopaths used more past tense words
- Psychopaths used more subordinating conjunctions |
| Usefulness | - Used in order to work out the best rehabilitation schemes to give inmates
- This could greatly improve the quality of life for these people |
| Similarities | - Androcentric samples
- In institutional settings (Yerkes = army camps, Hancock = prisons)
- Quasi-experiments
- Self report |
| Differences | Yerkes
-1.75 million sample
- Opportunity sample
Hancock
-14 psychopaths
- Self selected |
| Freewill Vs Determinism FREEWILL | - Psychopaths are ‘highly manipulative’
- If they are able to manage how they are perceived by others, then this would suggest they have control over their behaviour |
| Freewill Vs Determinism DETERMINISM | - Psychopath qualities seem to have biological underpinnings
- Psychopaths have structural abnormalities in their brains |
| Link to area/perspective | - Individual differences area, use of language
- Psychodynamic perspective, how psychopaths use language are ‘likely beyond conscious control', unconscious element |
| Link to key theme | - Measuring differences |
| How does the study of Hancock improve our understanding of measuring differences? | - More scientific than Yerkes
- Study had blind test, Wmatrix, less room for error, not influenced by human emotion
- Wmatrix counts subordinating conjunctions, making it objective
- However, they changed the threshold form 30 to 25, not objective |
| How does the contemporary study improve our understanding of individual, social and cultural diversity? INDIVIDUAL DIVERSITY | - Measures behaviour and individual differences fairly
- Measures more specific behaviours, Gould only intelligence |
| How does the contemporary study improve our understanding of individual, social and cultural diversity? SOCIAL DIVERSITY | - Hancock, 52 men in prison for murder, not social diverse but they are likely have similar backgrounds
- Explains an important issue in society, could reduce future offending |
| How does the contemporary study improve our understanding of individual, social and cultural diversity? CULTURAL DIVERSITY | - Prisoners in Canada, no cultural diversity
- Extend our understanding from America, but could have included other cultures |
