Thesis (M.A.)--University of Montana, 2007. / Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed Aug. 28, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 44-60).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 1999. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-105).

Thesis (D.C.P./Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2008. / Title from title screen (viewed February 4, 2009). Includes graphs, tables and questionnaries. Includes list of publications co-authored with others: leaves 21-22. Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology / Doctor of Philosophy to the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

The phenomenon of serial murder has fascinated people for many years. Despite this fascination, the body of scientific knowledge surrounding this topic seems quire limited. Research is often based on second-hand and anecdotal sources of information and not on direct contact with the individuals who commit these crimes. Based on this information, assumptions are made about these individual’s mental state and personality. This research which was undertaken is unique in that it is an in-depth look at two individuals who committed serial murder. The research design, grounded in interactional theory, makes use of unstructured interviews, an interactional analysis, and psychological tests such as the South African Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Thematic Apperception Test, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory IIIed, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory 2nd Edition, and 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire in an attempt to try and come to a psychological understanding and interactional description of these two individuals’ behaviour. In doing so it revisits what has already been said about this phenomenon, makes comparisons, and provides a brief theoretical view of the phenomenon as part of man’s social order. / Thesis (PhD (Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Psychology / unrestricted

This study was designed to examine the hypothesis that the speech of criminal psychopaths is poorly integrated. Measures of cohesion (lexical, referential, conjunctive) and coherence (plot-units) were used to assess the degree to which independent clauses were linked together in the personal narratives of criminal psychopaths and criminal nonpsychopaths. General deviance in communication, as measured by the Scale for Thought, Language, and Communication Disorders (Andreasen, 1980), was also assessed. A significant number of psychopaths produced disordered communications. These communications failed on a number of levels: Psychopaths used relatively few cohesive links between sentences, failed to provide appropriate referents in discourse, failed to link action and resolution in stories, and showed significant clinical impairment in their ability to communicate. The results suggest that effective connections among speech units in psychopaths' discourse are not as numerous as those found in nonpsychopaths. In addition, psychopaths may suffer from a more general impairment in communication that is related to, among other things, discourse which has a tendancy to slip off track and a failure to directly answer a listener's questions. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2003. / Includes bibliography.

No description available.

The overall purpose of the present study is to contribute to a better understanding of the experiences of young homeless women residing at Covenant House New York, a youth shelter that provides crisis and long-term residential programs to young adults ages 18 – 21. The main objective was to identify past life events and their contributions to the development of positive traits and psychopathology among three groups. The participants were 162 homeless young women, including childfree women, young mothers enrolled at a transitional living Rights of Passage program (12-18 months), and young mothers in crisis enrolled in a 30-day Mother and Child Crisis program. Past life experiences were identified via the Effort to Outcome (ETO) online software database maintained by Covenant House New York. Rates of psychopathology were measured using the IIP (interpersonal problems), PHQ-9 (depression), GAD-7 (anxiety), PSS (parental stress) while rates of positive traits were measured using the SCS (self-compassion), SCBCS (compassion toward others), and PGIS (motivation to change). The results indicated that all participants, regardless of group affiliation, had similar life experiences, though childfree women were more likely to have a history of abandonment, physical abuse, and previous incidents of homelessness. Additionally, presence of abuse history was positively associated with development of psychopathology. As expected, history of sexual abuse was negatively associated with self-compassion, but it was positively associated with compassion toward others. Mothers at the Mother and Child Crisis program had greater rates of self-compassion than mothers at the Rights of Passage program, and childfree women were more likely than the mothers to be compassionate toward others. Mothers at the Mother and Child Crisis program were also more likely to be compassionate toward others than mothers at the Rights of Passage program. Childfree women, however, were more likely to be depressed than mothers at the Mother and Child Crisis program.