Use statistical text analysis to examine the features of crime narratives provided by psychopathic homicide offenders.
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What were the x3 major characteristics examined while the psychopaths were speaking?
1). Their instrumental nature 2). Their unique material and socioemotional needs 3). Their emotional deficit.
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What was the overall objective of the study?
investigate whether the language of psychopaths reflected a predatory world view, unique socio-emotional needs and a poverty of affect
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Research method?
1)Psychopathy measured: Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) 2).used semi-structured/open-ended interviews(self-report method).3)Used Step-Wise Interview technique to gather data in relation to the language of psychopaths+non-psychopaths who killed
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How was the Narratives (interviews) analysed?
narratives transcribed + analysed through content analysis using the Wmatrix and the DAL
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Research method?
type of quasi experiment using self report to collect data to be analysed
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Sample?
1) volunteer sample : 52 male murderers (first degree, second degree or manslaughter) from Canada
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How was psychopathy measured?
using Psychopathy Checklist Revised: 14 to be psychopaths and 38 to be non-psychopaths.
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How were the groups matched?
The type of murder and age.
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Linguistic analysis tools- Wmatrix?
used to compare parts of speech and to analyse semantic concepts contained in the psychopath and control corpora.
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Linguistic analysis tools- (DAL) software program ?
Used to examine the affective tone of the words.
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Conclusions?
1) Psychopaths more likely than non-psychopaths to describe cause+effect relationships when describing their murder. 2) Psychopaths more likely to view their crime as a logical outcome of a plan than non-psychopaths.
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Conclusions?
3) Psychopaths focus more on physiological needs than higher level social needs than non-psychopaths. 4) Psychopaths are focused on a lower level of necessities in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs than non- psychopaths.
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Conclusions?
5) Psychopaths will linguistically frame their homicide as more in the past + more psychologically distant terms than non-psychopaths. 6) Psychopaths give less emotionally intense descriptions of their crimes + use less emotionally pleasant language
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Conclusions?
7) Psychopathic language is substantially more disfluent than that of non-psychopaths. 8) Psychopaths describe powerful emotional events (their crimes) in an idiosyncratic manner. 9) Psychopaths operate on primitive but rational level.
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
What were the x3 major characteristics examined while the psychopaths were speaking?
Back
1). Their instrumental nature 2). Their unique material and socioemotional needs 3). Their emotional deficit.
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