Hancock

Question 1

Perspective

Answer 1

Psychodynamic

Question 2

Background

Answer 2

• A psychopath is someone who exhibits a wholly selfish orientation and profound emotions, deficit. No deficit in intellect.
• Evidence suggests it’s due to structural and functional abnormalities in the brain.
• Word choice can illustrate cognitive and emotional processes as it’s often a non-conscious process.

Question 3

Aims/ hypothesis

Answer 3

• Psychopaths will have a higher level of subordinating conjunctions (explanatory behaviour) which suggests their crimes are pre-meditated.
• Psychopaths narrative about their crimes will contain more references to material needs e.g. food and less to higher level needs e.g. spirituality.
• Fewer or less intense emotional words and more disfluencies e.g. uh, use more language that reflects psychological distancing. They have an increased cognitive overload trying to describe what happened in an appropriate manner. They cannot recognise emotion in others. They reflect more in the past tense.

Question 4

Research method

Answer 4

Quasi experiment

Psychopathy is naturally occurring and their language is determined by this.

Question 5

Experimental design

Answer 5

Independent measures

Psychopaths and non-psychopaths

Question 6

Sample and sampling method

Answer 6

52 males in prison in Canada for murder.
14 psychopaths. 39.71 yrs. 11.87 years since murder.
38 non-psychopaths 39.91yrs. 9.82 years since murder.

Sample volunteered to take part in study: self-selecting sample

Question 7

Procedure stage 1

Answer 7

• Psychopathy measured by PCL-R test. Characterised by 20 criteria scored from 0-2 with max score of 40.
• cut off for Clinical diagnosis is 30 but for the study 25 was deemed acceptable.
• For 39 men the PCL-R was conducted by a trained prison psychologist and for the other 13 a trained researcher.
• Inter-rarer reliability checked by recoding 10 randomly picked case files.

Question 8

Stage 2 of procedure

Answer 8

• Participants asked to describe their offence in as much detail as possible. They were prompted to do this by interviewers using a standard procedure called the step-wise interview.
• 25 minutes.
• Led by 2 senior psychology graduates and one research student. All blind to psychopathy scores.
• Interviews were audio taped and narratives were later transcribed.

Question 9

Stage 3 of procedure- analysis of transcripts

Answer 9

Wmatrix- the body of speech produced was brought together and analysed.
It compares speech, tags part of speech (e.g. verb, noun) and uses context to help.

Dictionary of affect in language:
Software analyses emotional properties of language (positive vs negative, low vs high intensity). Scores intensity and pleasantness of emotional language for each participants statement.

Question 10

Findings

Answer 10

Psychopaths produced significantly more subordinating conjunctions which suggests a more causal view.
Psychopaths used more words connected to basic needs and non psychopaths used more words connected to higher needs e.g. meaningful relationships.
Negative correlation between factor 1 scores on the DAL and pleasantness and intensity of emotional language used by psychopaths.
Psychopaths used 33% more disfluencies than non psychopaths.
Psychopaths used significantly higher % of verbs in the past tense e.g. stabbed.

Question 11

Conclusions

Answer 11

Psychopaths view their crimes as the logical outcomes of a plan.
More likely to focus on their own basic physiological needs.
Less emotional and less positive in their speech.
More emotionally detached from their crimes.

Question 12

How does Hancock relate to the psychodynamic perspective.

Answer 12

Conscious/ unconscious mind: differences in language are beyond conscious control so there’s an unconscious element to what they say.
Psychopaths focus on basic needs which are linked to the desires of the ID.
Ego defence mechanisms: psychopaths use language that distances themselves from blame.

Question 13

Ethics

Answer 13

Upheld:
Consent: self selecting sample
Confidentiality was maintained.

Broken:
PFH: could be distressing to recall their crimes.
Deception?: unclear whether prisoners knew they were being assessed for psychopathy and compared to non-psychopaths.

Question 14

Reliability

Answer 14

Internal:
Standard procedure: step-wise interview.
Inter-rater reliability check coding of PCL-R assessments.
Looked at different aspects of language that can be compared.

External:
Only 14 psychopaths.
38 non-psychopaths

Question 15

Validity

Answer 15

Internal (does study succeed in telling us about psychopaths use of language?):
No chance of researcher bias: language analysed using software (Wmatrix and DAL).
Interviewers were blind to psychopathy scores.
Psychopaths not told the aspect of language researchers were interested in.
Double-blind procedure- reduced researcher bias.

External (population validity):
All men from Canada and all criminals convicted for murder- not all psychopaths are criminals.

Question 16

Ethnocentrism

Answer 16

All from Canada. People in different countries use language in different ways.
Assume they’re all English speakers despite Canada speaking French and English.

Question 17

Links to debates

Answer 17

Determinism: psychopaths diminished capacity for moral sensibility has biological underpinnings that are beyond their control.
Freewill: psychopaths use language to manipulate others. If they understand how others see them, they should have control over their behaviour.
Usefulness: can be used in prisons to detect psychopaths to give inmates the best rehabilitation scheme. Schools can use it to detect psychopaths in children which can be used to affect how they educate them.
Socially sensitive: findings can be misapplied e.g. if someone uses a lot of conjunctions and disfluencies they could be labelled a psychopath and employers could fire those who use this language.