hancock

• key theme


  measuring differences
• background


  smyth et al-> psychiatric patients produce fewer words of optimism and future compared to a sample of community volunteers

  raine-> psychopaths dimished capability of neural sensibility has biological underpinnings
• Aim:


  To investigate whether the language of psychopaths reflected a predatory world view, unique socioemotional needs and a poverty of effect
• method


  PCL-R test to measure psychopath levels

  self- report method using semi-structures interviews also using the Step-Wise Interview technique

  •The narratives were subsequently transcribed and analysed through content analysis using the Wmatrix and the DAL.
• sample


  volunteer

  14 psychopaths, 38 non-psychopaths

  from Canadian correctional facilities

  8 convictions were for first-degree murder, 32 of convictions were for second-degree murder and 10 of convictions were for manslaughter
• procedure


  Interviews lasted about 25 minutes.

  Two text analysis tools were then used to analyse the transcripts:

  (i) The corpus analysis programme Wmatrix, which was used to compare parts of speech and to analyse semantic concepts contained in the psychopath and control group

  (ii) The Dictionary of Affect in Language (DAL) software programme was used to examine the affective tone of the words. 
• findings


  There was no significant difference in the average number of words produced by psychopaths and controls. 

  psychos talked more about physiological needs than social needs
• findings


  psychos used more past tense verbs and their language was less fluent
• conclusions


  -They are also more likely to view their crime as a logical outcome of a plan and focus more on physiological needs than higher level social needs. -Psychopaths language is substantially more disfluent (disjointed/not fluent/stutter) than that of non-psychopaths

  Psychopaths describe powerful emotional events (their crimes) in an idiosyncratic manner