1. Hancock et al. (2011) (A2) Hungry like the wolf: A word-pattern analysis of the language of psychopaths

2. Task Read the two letters (Activity 1).
What could you infer from the letters about the writer?
Did you notice how letter 1 seems more selfish (fewer questions about Mark and much more about the writer), disjointed and cold? Words and how we use them is of upmost importance. This is what this study looks at.

3. Background
The language you choose to use reveals a lot about you – it directly delivers a message from one person to another.
Word choice can often illustrate underlying cognitive and emotional processes due to word choice often being a non-conscious process.
Imagine trying to convey all of your thoughts, feelings and emotions without using words.

4. What do you know about psychopaths?
Comprise of 1 per cent of the population
Often selfish, emotionally deficit, no ‘conscience’; but are often skilled conversationalists and manipulative
What do you know about psychopaths?
3% of business leaders are psychopaths
No deficits in intellect
Psychopaths have structural brain differences
2.5 times more likely to gain parole, despite higher rate of reoffending
Previous research into psychopaths’ use of language has found that their language is more inconsistent and less cohesive

5. Psychopaths
Nearly all (93.3 per cent) murders committed by psychopaths are instrumental (planned and goal-orientated, e.g. for the acquisition of money), whereas only half of non-psychopath murders (48.4 per cent) are instrumental.
Think about film/TV characters that you have seen. Which ones do you think could be psychopaths?

6. Aims
The aim of the study was to examine the language characteristics of psychopaths (when describing their violent crimes) on three major characteristics:
To investigate whether psychopaths use more subordinating conjunctions (e.g. ‘because’ and ‘since’). These words are associated with cause-and-effect statements and would suggest a more planned crime.
To investigate if psychopaths’ narratives about their crimes would (relative to other criminals’) contain more references to basic needs like food and drink, and fewer references reflecting higher-level needs, such as for love, family and spirituality.
To investigate whether psychopaths produce fewer and less intense emotional words, produce more disfluencies (e.g. ‘uh’) and use language that reflects increased psychological ‘distancing’ from and a lack of personal responsibility for their crime (e.g. more past tense verbs and fewer present tense verbs).

7. Participants 14 psychopaths
64% for second degree murder (unplanned but with malice)
38 non-psychopaths
20% for manslaughter (assault/other crime that ends in death)
All male murderers in Canadian prisons
All admitted to their crime and volunteered for study
No differences between psychopaths and non-psychopaths in terms of conviction, age or length of imprisonment (averaged out among the groups).
16% for first degree murder (premeditated/planned)

8. Procedure
Psychopathy measured on PCL-R – out of 40; 30 is the normal cut off, however for research 25 is considered acceptable.
Conducted by trained prison psychologists.
Inter-rater reliability (IRR) checked by re-coding ten randomly picked case files – IRR = .94
14 psychopathic
38 non psychopathic

9. Have a go at the PCL-R on Activity sheet 2.
Just remember that self-diagnosis is never a good idea.

10. Procedure
Interview. Participants were asked to describe their homicide offence in as much detail as possible (step-wise interview procedure was used).
Total of 25 minutes for each interview; two senior psychology graduates, one research assistant – all blind to psychopathy scores (they didn’t know who was a psychopath and who wasn’t).
Narratives were then transcribed (what was said was then written down).

11. Results/analysis
Wmatrix compares speech, tags parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective) – uses context to help, e.g. ‘fly’ in ‘house fly’ is a noun, but in ‘birds fly’ it is a verb.
Keywords: psychopath corpus, non psychopath corpus, log-likihood ratio
Dictionary of Affect in Language (DAL) software analyses emotional properties of language (positive vs. negative, low vs. high intensity, low vs. high imagery). Scores pleasantness and intensity of emotional language for each participant’s statement.

12. Callousness and lack of empathy Subordinating conjunctives
Quotes from the study
Callousness and lack of empathy
Lower level needs
‘The money was excellent.’
‘I just turned around and looked at him and I just stabbed him and I said, “None of your fucking business.”’
‘Then we just left to go get some more, some more booze and more drugs.’
‘I said I have to do something because there is no way I want to end up losing all my life in prison.’
Disfluencies
‘We got uh, we got high, and had a few beer, I like whiskey so I bought some whiskey, we had some of that, and then we uh, went for a swim.’
Subordinating conjunctives

13. Results/analysis
No significant difference in words per account between the two groups.
Psychopaths (1.82 per cent) had more subordinating conjunctions (‘because’, ‘since’, ‘as’, ‘so that’) than controls (1.54 per cent). This suggests a more causal view – ‘I committed the murder because…’
Psychopaths showed more basic needs (sex, food, shelter) and fewer higher needs (meaningful relationships, spirituality).
Psychopaths used 33 per cent more disfluencies (words that often demonstrate stumbling or thinking, e.g. ‘um’) than non-psychopaths, and more verbs in the past tense.

14. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Where do you think psychopaths fit on this?
Could you link this to the psychodynamic approach?
‘psychopaths being stuck in the lowest stage of ego development’, Endres (2004)

15. Task
Using your knowledge of the results, write one account from a psychopath and one from a non-psychopath, describing their crime.
It may be a good idea to use a standard clip of a crime, maybe something from a soap opera. The key is to focus on the results of the study and incorporate them into your work.

16. Questions Is their language a produce of psychopathy?
Why might they be feeling negative?
Why else might they be using the past tense?
Could they have been lying?
Why else might they be good a justifying their behaviour?

17. Evaluation Validity Ecological validity Reliability Other Ethics
Did the interviewers know who was a psychopath? How does this effect validity?
What was the cut-off point for psychopathy?
Ecological validity
Would criminals often talk about their crimes?
Is being interviewed common for criminals?
Reliability
Did the study have high inter-rater reliability?
What form of interview did they use? Did everyone have the same type of interview?
Other
Is it useful to know that language differs in psychopaths? Who could use this information?
How can this study be seen as a psychodynamic study?
Ethics
Did the participants know they were being tested for psychopathy?
Were any of the other ethical guidelines broken?

18. Links to debates
Could this study be used to suggest that psychopaths aren’t responsible for their actions? What debate or debates could this be linked to?
Could this be used to detect psychopaths? This would make the study useful, but does this make the research socially sensitive?
If someone uses language similar to a psychopath (more past tense, etc.), does that mean they are a psychopath? Is there any free will involved?

19. Links to areas/perspectives
Hancock’s study falls within the individual differences area because it is looking at the differences between psychopaths and non-psychopaths. The study is specifically looking at the differences in the language used.
It could also come under the psychodynamic perspective as it suggests that psychopaths are thrill seekers who are trying to satisfy basic needs. This could be linked to the role of the id (as proposed by Freud).

20. Links to key themes
The key theme of this study is ‘measuring differences’. Hancock found that there are differences in the way that psychopaths use language, compared to non-psychopaths.
Both Gould (reviewing Yerkes’ work) and Hancock aim to measure the differences between people. Hancock manages to do this in a more objective and sensitive manner, showing that measuring differences is possible and can play an important role in psychology.
Individual, social and cultural diversity – Hancock’s study informs us of the individual diversity that exists within our society. The study shines a light on the thought processes (specifically the language) of psychopaths. Although Hancock looked at only one nation (Canada), his use of objective measures highlights the danger of using subjective measures and allowing cultural biases to have an effect (Yerkes).

21. Gould
Hancock
Use your comparison sheet to compare the two studies. Below are a few questions that may help you.
What do the samples have in common?
What research method was used in both
(for this think Yerkes, not Gould)?
Sample size?
Which study uses objective data? Which one
uses subjective data?
Which one is more reliable?