HANCOCK (2011) LANGUAGE OF PSYCHOPATHS What words can you think of to describe a psychopath? Selfish orientation HANCOCK (2011) LANGUAGE OF PSYCHOPATHS Can use workbook when going through slide Little conscience In simplest form: a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behaviour Profound emotional deficit

Theories on which study is based: Language communicates directly an individual’s thoughts to another person Words can reveal significant insights about psychological functioning Underlying cognitive and emotional processes can be revealed through subtle patterns in word choice There has been little examination of the speech associated with psychopaths who comprise about 1% of the general population

Previous research Patrick (2006) found psychopaths have no apparent deficits in intellect Williamson (1993) found psychopaths are more likely to use contradictory, logically inconsistent statements, than non psychopaths

Hancock (2011) The first to uniquely examine the specific qualities of psychopathic language using sophisticated statistical text analysis tools. The researchers examined the language characteristics of psychopaths (in describing their violent crimes) on three major characteristics:

1. Instrumental nature As psychopaths appear to view the world and others instrumentally as they are talking, Hancock et al. were interested in seeing if this would be reflected in their speech in the form of subordinating junctions (eg. because, since, as, so that). These are words associated with casue and effect statements It can be suggested offenders whose crimes are premeditated and motivated by the achievement of an external goal, are open to the use of case and effect explanatory langauge

2. Their unique material and socio-emotional needs It seems to be the case that satisfying ones basic physiological and material needs (eg food, sex and shelter) matters more to psychopaths than the need for higher level needs (meaningful relationships, spirituality, self-esteem). Hancock et al. were interested in seeing whether their narratives about their crimes would contain more references to food, drink, clothing, sex and resources (money) and fewer references reflecting high level needs such as love, family and spirituality.

3. Their emotional deficit Psychopaths exhibit a generalised deficit in their ability to experience emotions themselves and to recognise the emotions that other people are feeling. Hancock et all. Hypothesised that this emotional deficit might lead psychopaths to… Produce fewer and less emotional words Produce more disfluenceies (‘uh’, ‘um’) reflecting the increased cognitive load being placed on them by the challenge of describing what happened in a manner that appears appropriate Use of language that reflects psychological ‘distancing’ from and a lack of personal responsibility for the crime, such as a high rate of past tense verbs, fewer present tense versba, and a high rate of artciles (‘a’, ‘the’) in line with more use of concrete nouns.

AIM: To see whether traits of psychopaths could be found in their speech

Method: How many? How did they gather the sample? Gender? From where? 8 (16%) first degree 32 (64%) second degree 10 (20%) manslaughter How did they gather the sample? Gender? From where? Volunteer sample Murderers (first degree, second degree and manslaughter) From Canada 52 males Who were the sample?

Before we continue… I want you to think about these two questions throughout Are all murderers psychopaths? Are all psychopaths murderers?

Psychopathy Measured using self-report ‘Psychopathy Checklist’ Do you have a grand sense of self-worth? Are you a pathological liar? Are you conning or manipulative? Do you display a lack of remorse or guilt? Found 14 to be psychopaths and 38 to be non-psychopaths Groups were matched on type of murder and age (Psychopaths mean age 39.71; control mean age 39.1) and amount of time since homicide was committed (psychopaths mean = 11.87 years, Controls = 9.82)

Interviews lasted around 25 minutes and were recorded After groups were made, ppts were interviewed. At the beginning of the interview, the purpose of the study (to examine the manner in which homicide offenders recall their homicide offence) and the procedure were verbally explained Ppts were asked to describe their offences in as much detail as possible Interviews lasted around 25 minutes and were recorded Two senior psychology graduate students and one research assistant conducted the interviews and they were unaware of the psychopathy scores of the offenders Is this good or bad?

Results: Difference in number of words spoken was not significant Aim 1 Difference in number of words spoken was not significant Psychopaths produced more words that are subordinating conjunctions, such as: because, since, as, so that  Psychopaths also used approximately twice as many words relating to basic physiological needs such as food, drink and money when describing their crime Non-psychopaths used significantly more language relating to social needs, including family, religion and spirituality Aim 2

Degree of detachment from crime Examined through use of past and present verbs… Psychopaths… Used more past tense verbs (stabbed rather than stab) Produced a higher rate of articles (‘a’ and ‘the’) than controls, showing a greater use of concrete nouns (material objects).  Language was significantly less fluent No significant differences in the emotional content of language between the two groups in relation to pleasantness, intensity or imagery Language was less positive and less emotionally intense. Aim 1 Aim 3

Conclusions Psychopaths are more likely to… Describe cause and effect relationships when describing their murder Linguistically frame crime as more in past and more psychologically distant View crime as logical outcome of plan and focus more on physiological needs than higher level social needs Operate on a primitive but rational level Describe crimes with low emotional intensity and use less emotionally pleasant language

HOMEWORK: Complete Activity 1 (evaluation pack)