The language of psychopaths: A systematic review

Brites, José

doi:10.1016/j.avb.2016.02.009

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…In summary, the discourse of psychopathic offenders appeared less coherent (due to the increased usage of filler words) than that of other offenders (consistent with findings by Brinkley et al, 1999;Williamson, 1991), contained more pronouns relating to the self (for similar findings, see Hancock et al, 2015), and contained fewer references to others (comparable with results found by Hancock et al, 2013). Some past research has found that psychopaths are capable of formulating and using verbal and written language according to phonological, syntactic, morphological, and semantic rules (Brites, Ladera, Perea, & Garcia, 2014), and recognizing the internal structure of words and their principles (Brites, 2016). However, although we did not include formal analyses of grammatical content and structure, our findings provide support for the other clinical impressions and previous empirical evidence that psychopathic language often lacks cohesion (Brinkley et al, 1999;Cleckley, 1976;Hare, 1999;Williamson, 1991).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 71%

“…Some past research has found that psychopaths are capable of formulating and using verbal and written language according to phonological, syntactic, morphological, and semantic rules (Brites, Ladera, Perea, & Garcia, 2014), and recognizing the internal structure of words and their principles (Brites, 2016). However, although we did not include formal analyses of grammatical content and structure, our findings provide support for the other clinical impressions and previous empirical evidence that psychopathic language often lacks cohesion (Brinkley et al, 1999; Cleckley, 1976; Hare, 1999; Williamson, 1991).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Linguistic Output of Psychopathic Offenders During a PCL-R Interview

Le¹,

Woodworth²,

Gillman³

et al. 2016

Criminal Justice and Behavior

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We used text analysis software to examine the linguistic features of the speech of 21 psychopathic and 45 other offenders during the interview part of a Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R) assessment. Regression analysis was run on the linguistic categories to determine which were the best predictors of psychopathy scores. Relative to the other offenders, psychopaths used more disfluencies (“you know”) and personal pronouns, made fewer references to other people (e.g., personal names, family), and were also less emotionally expressive. In particular, a low frequency of anxiety-related words and a more frequent use of personal pronouns were the most significant predictors of PCL-R scores and accounted for 25% of the variance. These findings for the first time afford a unique glimpse into the language produced during the PCL-R assessment interview. In addition to enhancing our understanding of psychopathic speech, these results may provide interviewers additional insights relevant to the assessment and therapeutic process.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 71%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Linguistic Output of Psychopathic Offenders During a PCL-R Interview

Le¹,

Woodworth²,

Gillman³

et al. 2016

Criminal Justice and Behavior

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“…Brites et al (2015) found that psychopaths know phonological, syntactic, morphological, and semantic rules of verbal and written language. They recognize word structure and its principles, as well as phonetic and morphological features (Brites, 2016). Brites (2016) concludes that psychopaths' language has an adaptive value and reflects the main characteristics of their personality.…”

Section: Grammarmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They recognize word structure and its principles, as well as phonetic and morphological features (Brites, 2016). Brites (2016) concludes that psychopaths' language has an adaptive value and reflects the main characteristics of their personality.…”

Section: Grammarmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Differentiation of Narrative Styles in Individuals with High Psychopathic Deviate

Gawda

2021

J Psycholinguist Res

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The current study was designed to show the differentiation of narrative styles in individuals with high scores in Psychopathic deviate (Pd) scale and develop a method enabling identification of psychopathic personality traits based on linguistic indicators. 600 spontaneous narrations related to emotional topics have been examined for grammar, syntactic, and lexical indicators. The indicators have been selected based on a review related to language of psychopaths. The narrations were written by 200 persons who were also tested for psychopathic deviate and intelligence level, including prisoners diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Independent judges identified the linguistic indicators which were then counted for each person with the use of computer software. The configuration profiles of the linguistic indicators/narrative styles were established using k-mean clustering method. Then, ANOVA was performed to show which clusters differentiate the levels of psychopathic deviate. The findings show there are two configurations of language features (important: single features were not examined) associated with high levels of psychopathic deviate patterns. Two narrative styles were identified, labelled demonstrative-digressive-egocentric-emotional-dogmatic and reserved-focused on the topic-repetitive, which indicate high psychopathic deviate traits. The ROC curves were applied to establish the prediction of the narrative styles for high psychopathic deviate scores.

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“…For this reason, these researchers recommended that future studies examine the speech characteristics of people with psychopathy, both for emotional and for unemotional events. In their opinion, participants' responses to emotional stimuli had to be considered both objectively and subjectively [23,24].…”

Section: Psychopathy and Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Emotional content analysis among psychopathic individuals during emotional induction by IAPS pictures

Pham¹,

Gwicz²,

Scohier³

et al. 2021

Int J Risk Recov

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Background Emotional processes among psychopathic individuals have been consistently investigated. Although content analysis is interesting for evaluating emotional characteristics, few data exist concerning Psychopath’s speech content following affective and neutral images. Method Population included male forensic inpatients (n=47) from Security Hospital. The inpatients were divided into: “Psychopaths” (n=24, PCL-R total score >25), “Intermediates” (n=12, score from 15 to 24.9) and “Non-psychopaths” (n=11, score <14.9). TROPES analyses and EMOTAIX scenario tools examined the narrative’s emotional characteristics. We tested the hypothesis that psychopaths report fewer emotional words on all images, particularly on negative-valence images. Results Our results on the whole do not support this hypothesis but suggested rather a specific discordance in the verbal emotional treatment (exclusively PCL-R interpersonal factor) but not in terms of the subjective evaluation. Moreover, this factor was positively correlated with the number of the self-referring pronouns (“I”, me) setting whereas PCL-R Social Deviance factor was positively correlated with action verbs. Conclusion Speech outputs of psychopaths present specificities in terms of emotional content and verbal setting. The results are congruent with the notion that psychopathy combines both functionality and subtle impairment.

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The language of psychopaths: A systematic review

Cited by 9 publications

References 44 publications

The Linguistic Output of Psychopathic Offenders During a PCL-R Interview

The Linguistic Output of Psychopathic Offenders During a PCL-R Interview

The Differentiation of Narrative Styles in Individuals with High Psychopathic Deviate

Emotional content analysis among psychopathic individuals during emotional induction by IAPS pictures

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