Hancock et al. (2011)

Hungry Like the Wolf: A Word-Pattern Analysis of the Language of Psychopaths.

Background and aim: This was the first study to uniquely examine the specific qualities of psychopathic language using sophisticated statistical text analysis tools. Through describing their violent crimes, language characteristics of psychopaths were examined on three major characteristics: 1. their instrumental nature, 2. their unique material and socioemotional needs, 3. their emotional deficit. The study aimed to investigate whether the language of psychopaths reflected a predatory world view, unique socio-emotional needs and a poverty of affect

Method: A volunteer sample of 52 male murderers (first degree, second degree or manslaughter) from Canada, who had admitted their crime took part in the study. Psychopathy was measured using Psychopathy Checklist Revised and judged 14 to be psychopaths and 38 to be non-psychopaths. The groups were matched on type of murder and age. After the classification of psychopathy was made participants were informed of the aims and the procedures for the study and the interviews then commenced. They were asked to describe their offences in as much detail as possible. They were prompted by interviewers to do this using a standardised procedure known as the Step-Wise Interview. Interviews lasted about 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. After the interviews the narratives were transcribed and then analysed using two different text analysis tools.

Results: The interviews of the participants produced a total of 127,376 words. The psychopath narratives averaged 2,201.5 per participant and the non-psychopaths averaged 2,554.3; this difference 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. The degree to which the psychopaths were detached from their crime was examined through the use of the past and present form of verbs. Psychopaths used more past tense verbs than controls, such as stabbed and fewer present tense verbs, such as stab. Psychopaths also produced a higher rate of articles than controls, showing a greater use of concrete nouns. Psychopaths’ language was also significantly less fluent, but there were no significant differences in the emotional content of language between the two groups in relation to pleasantness, intensity or imagery. But further analysis showed that psychopaths’ language was less positive and less emotionally intense.

Conclusions: Hancock et al. concluded that psychopaths are more likely than non-psychopaths to describe cause and effect relationships when describing their murder. They will linguistically frame their crime as more in the past and in more psychologically distant terms and are more likely to describe it in an idiosyncratic way. 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’ descriptions of their crimes are less emotionally intense and they use less emotionally pleasant language than non-psychopaths. The language that psychopaths use is also significantly more disfluent. Psychopaths seem to operate on a primitive but rational level and are focused on a lower level in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, compared to non-psychopaths.

Evaluation

Research method: This study used a number of different methods. It was quasi-experimental as the participants being psychopaths was clearly not manipulated; therefore, natural behaviour is being studied. An open ended interview was conducted and prompts were used. This allowed rich, detailed qualitative data to be gained; however, comparisons may have been difficult as different aspects of the crimes may have been described in different amounts of detail by participants. Also, a content analysis was used to analyse the data. The interpretation may been biased and certain trends may not have been reported.

Ethical considerations: As the participants were volunteers, they clearly gave their consent to take part and were told the aims and the procedures of the interview. However, it isn’t clear whether this consent was fully informed: they may not have been aware they were being assessed on psychopathy or being compared to another group.

Validity: Internal validity was increased as the participants were not told the exact aims of the interview and the interviewers were not aware which murderers were psychopaths, resulting in no interviewer bias. However, questions have been asked about the validity of the classification of psychopaths. A lower score than normal on the test was used to classify psychopathy which may have confounded the results.

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