Hancock

Question 1

Define psychopath.

Answer 1

Someone who exhibits a wholly selfish orientation and profound emotional deficit however, despite appearing to have little or no ‘conscience’, they exhibit no apparent deficits in intellect.

Question 2

Define psychological distancing.

Answer 2

The mental process of creating space between oneself and a situation (in this instance their crime) enabling a more objective and less reactive response.

Question 3

What is the background to Hancock’s study?

Answer 3

• Psychopaths are people who come across as charming, intelligent and articulate but beneath the surface they lack empathy and are self-centred and manipulative.
• The method used to measure psychopathy uses Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist - Revised (PCL-R) which contains 20 items that can be scores on a scale of 0 to 2 (with 0 meaning the trait does not apply to them and 2 being the trait fully applies to them). A score of 30 or above, 25 for research, is required to be classed as a psychopath.

Question 4

What was the aim of Hancock’s study?

Answer 4

To investigate whether psychopaths use language differently to non-psychopaths (such that we could detect psychopathy based on how someone speaks).

Question 5

What was the sample in Hancock’s study?

Answer 5

• 52 male murderers from Canadian prisons.
• 14 psychopaths.
• 38 non-psychopaths.

Question 6

What was the procedure in Hancock’s study?

Answer 6

• Psychopathy assessments were made by a trained prison psychologist using the PCL-R and, in line with practice in research, a person was classified as a psychopath in this study if they scored 25 or above.
• Each man was interviewed by two senior psychology graduates and one research student, all blind to the psychopathy scores.
• Participants were asked to describe their offence in as much detail as possible.
• Interviews were audiotaped and turned into types transcripts that were as close to what was said as possible.

Question 7

What were the names of the two forms of computer-based analysis that the transcripts were subjected to in Hancock’s study?a

Answer 7

• Wmatrix
• Dictionary of Affect in Language (DAL)

Question 8

What did Wmatrix do in Hancock’s study?

Answer 8

Analysed the speech of all the psychopaths in comparison with all the non-psychopaths. It tagged parts of speech (nouns, verbs, etc…) and analysed semantic concepts (time, social actions, etc…).

Question 9

What did DAL (Dictionary of Affect in Language) do in Hancock’s study?

Answer 9

It was applied to each transcript individually and assessed the pleasantness and intensity of emotional language used.

Question 10

What predictions were made about the psychopath’s use of language in Hancock’s study?

Answer 10

• More use of subordinating conjunctions (as they view the world and other people and instruments for their own use).
• More semantic references to lower level needs (such as food, resources and sex) and less semantic references to higher level needs (such as love, family and spirituality).
• Produce fewer and less intense emotional words, more disfluencies, and higher use of language that reflects ‘psychological distancing’.

Question 11

What were the results from Hancock’s study?

Answer 11

• Psychopaths used more subordinating conjunctions than the control group which suggests a more casual view of their crime.
• Psychopaths talked more about h basic needs (food, sex, shelter) and less about higher level needs (love, family, spirituality).
• Psychopaths tended to use less pleasant and less intense emotional words as well as significantly more disfluencies (showing that they are altering their language to sound more appropriate to the interviewer) and a significantly higher number of verbs in the past tense than the control group (demonstrating psychological distancing).

Question 12

Were the predictions made in Hancock’s study the same as the actual results?

Answer 12

Yes

Question 13

What conclusions were made from Hancock’s study?

Answer 13

• The language that psychopaths use to describe emotional events (like their crimes) is different to the language used by non-psychopaths.
• Psychopaths seem to operate on a primitive but rational level.