Serial Homicide Perpetrators’ Self-Reported Psychopathy and Criminal Thinking

The current research reports 61 male serial murderers’ responses to self-report questionnaires designed to assess levels of psychopathy and criminal thinking. Three separate measures of psychopathy were included. Contrary to our predictions, results indicated that our sample of serial murderers did...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of police and criminal psychology 2019-03, Vol.34 (1), p.1-13
Main Authors: Culhane, Scott E., Walker, Stephannie, Hildebrand, Meagen M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antisocial personality disorder
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Cluster analysis
Cognition
Cognitive style
Cooling
Criminal pleas
Criminal psychology
Criminology and Criminal Justice
Homicide
Law and Psychology
Murders & murder attempts
Perpetrators
Personality traits
Prisoners
Psychology
Questionnaires
Recidivism
Self report
Serial crime
Serial murders
Temperament
Violent crime
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The current research reports 61 male serial murderers’ responses to self-report questionnaires designed to assess levels of psychopathy and criminal thinking. Three separate measures of psychopathy were included. Contrary to our predictions, results indicated that our sample of serial murderers did not demonstrate strong evidence of psychopathy. Rather, the percentage of inmates who could be classified as having psychopathic tendencies is on par with the general population of prisoners. Only half of the participants had an interpretable criminal thinking style scale. Temperament and power issues were the two factors of greatest significance for understanding the serial homicide perpetrators’ criminal cognition. In line with expectations, multiple significant correlations were observed for the measures. Implications and limitations of the research are discussed.
ISSN:0882-0783
1936-6469
DOI:10.1007/s11896-017-9245-x