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There has been little empirical study of the abilities contributing to proficient performance in psychological profiling. The authors sought to address this issue by comparing the accuracy of psychological profiles for a closed murder case generated by groups differing primarily in characteristics posited to underlie the profiling process. In addition to a sample of professional profilers, the study recruited groups of police officers, psychologists, university students, and self-declared psychics. Another group of participants compiled a generic profile of murderers without knowledge of the specific case given to other groups. Despite the small size of the sample of profilers, there were indications that this group had a set of profiling skills superior to the individual skills represented by the other expertise groups. In addition, the performance of psychologists was better in some respects than that of police and psychics, suggesting that an educated insight into human behavior might be relatively pertinent to psychological profiling. On the other hand, it would seem that psychics relied on nothing more than the social stereotype of a murderer in their production of the offender's profile.

The relationship of shame and guilt to eating-disorder symptomatology was investigated in a sample of 97 Australian women. In terms of the objective of predicting the severity of eating disturbance, the study explored the predictive utility of proneness to shame and guilt in a global sense, shame and guilt associated specifically with eating contexts, and shame associated with the body. The study also sought to determine if shame is a more prominent emotion than guilt among women who have eating difficulties. Shame associated with eating behavior was the strongest predictor of the severity of eating-disorder symptomatology. Other effective predictors were guilt associated with eating behavior and body shame. Eating disturbance was unrelated to proneness to shame and guilt in a global sense. Discussion of these findings focuses on the issue of determining whether self-conscious affects are best regarded as causes or as consequences of eating disturbance.

Previous research suggests that, as a group, people who believe in the paranormal tend to have a history of traumatic events in childhood. This relationship has been incorporated into Irwin's 1993 model of the psychological origins and functions of paranormal belief. A constructive replication of the relationship and a test of Irwin's model was undertaken in relation to a specific context, namely, a childhood spent with an alcoholic parent. Compared to 89 control participants, a sample of 32 adults who were children of alcoholics had stronger beliefs in witchcraft, superstitions, and precognition. The results are discussed in relation to two components of Irwin's model.

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