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background?

Psychopaths are pathological liars who mimic emotion, making them difficult to investigate. Analysing components of language rather than content (which may be deceptive), is likely to be more valid, as its likely automatic and unconscious.

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background 2?

Brinkley et al. (1999) showed Psychopaths used less cohesive ties and integrated details (i.e. went off on a tangent more).

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aim?

To examine whether the language of psychopaths reflected an instrumental/predatory world view, unique physical and socio-emotional, and deficits in affect (emotion).

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sampling method/ charactristics?

Self-selected sample of 52 male murders (first degree, second degree and manslaughter), with a mean age of 28.9years, who admitted their crime. 14 were classified as Psychopathic and 38 as non-psychopathic. They were all incarcerated in Canada

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method?

Quasi experiment with independent measures design (compared those with and without Psychopathic personalities)

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controls?

Analysed individual differences between conditions and found no significant difference between type of crime, age, or amount of time since homicide was committed, so these factors don’t explain differences in language.

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second control?

Interviewers were blind to Psychopathy scores of the prisoners so that interviewer effects didn’t influence responses.

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third control?

Assessed inter-rater reliability of diagnoses by having another trained researcher independently re-assess 10 randomly selected case files. The 2 researcher’s assessments showed a strong positive correlation of 0.94.

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materials?

Hare’s Revised Psychopathy Checklist: 20 criteria (characteristics) of Psychopathic personality are assessed by a trained clinician on a scale of 0 to 2 (with 2 being completely applies)

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materials 2?

The threshold for Psychopathy in this study was a score of 25/40, whereas, for clinical purposes, it is set at 30/40. The checklist has 2 factors: it measures emotional/ interpersonal traits, like lack of empathy, and antisocial/impulsive lifestyle

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materials 3?

Dictionary of Affective Language: computer program which automatically analyses and assigns scores for the whole narrative on how pleasant the language is, its intensity, and the use of imagery.

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materials 4? wmatrix

computer program which automatically analyses components of language (use of verbs, nouns, adjectives) and semantics (meaning of language used) to compare use of instrumental language, reference to socio-emotional needs, psychological distancing

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procedure?

Divided participants into condition using either existing classifications of Psychopathy (using Hare’s checklist) and included in the case files, or, if not available, by having a trained researcher assess Psychopathy, from case files- hare checklist

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procedure? 2

Participants were told the aim was to investigate how they recount their homicide, and were then interviewed using a semi-structured method, the Step Wise interview. Questions were open, and encouraged participants to describe their crime.

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procedure 3?

The narratives were transcribed, verbatim, from audio recordings so Wmatrix and DAL could be used to analyse the data.

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results and conslusions?

The instrumental language analysis showed that psychopaths produced more subordinating conjunctions than controls, e.g. because, since, as, so that. Psychopaths describe more cause and effect relationships when describing their murder reasons/ excus

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results and conclusions 2?

The Hierarchy of needs analysis showed that psychopaths used twice as many words related to basic physiological needs, including eating, drinking and monetary resources, than controls, and controls used significantly more language related to social

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what does result and conclusion 2 mean?

uggests that Psychopaths have different socio-emotional needs to non-Psychopaths, operating more at the lower level (Physiological needs) of Maslow’s hierarchy.

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what does the results from conclusion 2 mean?

This also supports a Psychodynamic explanation of Psychopathy: that it occurs because of disturbed personality development in childhood, with children not able to internalise the same sex parent’s teachings as the super-ego.

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results and conclusions 3?

Psychopaths used more past tense verbs, e.g. stabbed, and less present tense verbs, e.g. stab, than controls. This suggests that Psychopaths psychologically distance themselves from their crimes more than non-Psychopaths.

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results and conclusions 4?

Psychopaths produced more articles (i.e. a, the), meaning they were using more concrete nouns than controls. This suggests that they were emotionally detached from their crimes, describing physical things about the crime rather than emotion

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results and conclusions 5?

Psychopathic language was significantly less fluent (i.e. used more fillers like ‘um’ or ‘err’), than controls.

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what does conclusion 5 suggest?

This suggests describing what should be an emotional event whilst managing the interviewer’s impression, was difficult for Psychopaths, producing more cognitive load than in non-Psychopaths, meaning they couldn’t concentrate on creating fluent speach

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last conlsuion? 6

There was a significant, negative correlation between the pleasantness and emotional intensity of language, and scores on Hare’s checklist for affective/interpersonal traits

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what does conclusion 6 suggest?

This suggests that Psychopaths who have greater deficits in emotion and interpersonal relationships, describe their crimes in more unpleasant and less emotional ways, than people who score lower on emotional or interpersonal deficits.

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