Summary sheet for core study describing the basics for the study as well as ethical consideration and evaluations of validity and reliability within the study.
Background Method Ethics
Maslow hierarchy of needs: self-actualisation is to Quasi experiment -Verbally debriefed and gave informed consent as it was self-
reach our true potential and to do that we need all the Independent measures selecting sample. However, the ppts didn’t know the true aim of
others to get to the top. Semi-structured interviews assessing if they had traits of psychopathy.
Porter et al = Offenders in IV’s = psychopath + non-psychopath -Socially sensitive as the term psychopath may have negative
C Canadian penal system
DV = measure of language from the connotations and may make offenders reoffend due to self-
w. were x2.5 more likely than
text analysis. fulfilling prophecy.
than non-psychopaths to be
successful in applications.
Psychopathy Validity
Aim + Finding It’s a unique behaviour +High in internal validity as one experimenter was blind
To use text analysis to analyse language of Selfishness, lack of conscience, when doing the stepwise technique of counting
psychopaths in describing their violent crimes. remorse, easy to lie and manipulate. disfluencies making them less biased.
Aim 1: a predatory/ instrumental world Disfluencies and tense tell a lot about -Study was not examining the ppts general language but
view (clauses e.g., because – motivated by someone’s personality. their use of language at one point when explaining their
external goal offense.
Finding- psychopaths used more subordinating Sample
Hancock -Lacks validity as their language could have been down to
conjunctions- describing cause and effect. 52 males, murderers in Canadian prison, who education, culture, dialect or ability to try to find words
Aim 2: unique socioeconomical needs – volunteered to take part. when describing a murder, not necessarily them being a
little need for others and are more 14 psychopaths, 38 non-psychopaths psychopath.
concerned about their basic needs like No difference in type of murder, age, or time
food/sex ‘maslow’ – measure since crime. Reliability
Finding- psychopaths talk about their own ‘basic +Inter-rater reliability as there was 2 experimenters doing
needs’. Whereas non- psychopaths talk about Materials: the stepwise technique, so disfluencies were confirmed
their social needs (family). -PCL-R = scored from 0-2 with max score of 40 by 2 experimenters.
Aim 3: poverty of affect- difficulty and 25 or above would indicate psychopathy. -However, the interview was open-ended as ppts chose
identifying emotional faces – emotional -WMatrix = Classifying types of words (speech) what part of the murder to talk about in detail based on
words, disfluencies, past tense -Dictionary effect = emotional content (tone) their personal experience and how they feel.
Finding- psychopaths are more likely to use past
tense verbs, concrete nouns, emotionally distance Procedure: Ethnocentrism
(in the past), more disfluencies. -PCLR was completed by trained prison psychologist. -Can be argues as ethnocentric as all ppts were
No difference in emotional language or number of -Interviews were audiotaped and studied manner from Canada so only is viewing language and
words used. when recalling offense. psychopathy from one culture.
Mixed methods- was qualitative as language from -Stepwise technique = describe offense in detail -There are 2 main languages in Canada, French and
scribe but turned into quantitative by number from start to end. Lasted 25 min and was English, so study does not classify whether ppts
of... transcribed using disfluencies. Verbally debriefed. spoke French or English so may not be ethnocentric
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