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Language-related hand gestures in criminal psychopaths

Hand gestures were coded from videotaped interviews of male prison inmates divided into high (P), medium (M) and low (NP) groups based on the Psychopathy Checklist (Hare, 1980). Compared with other groups, psychopaths were found to make more beats (a type of nonreferential language-related gesture) when speaking about their family background but not when speaking about their criminal history. There were no group differences in the use of other language gestures or nonlanguage gestures. The results are discussed in terms of speech encoding difficulties that psychopaths may experience in relation to content that involves concepts or words that are abstract or emotion-laden. The results are consistent with language research, and suggest that psychopaths differ from others in the processing and use of language. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/28052
Date January 1987
CreatorsGillstrom, Brenda Jean
PublisherUniversity of British Columbia
Source SetsUniversity of British Columbia
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, Thesis/Dissertation
RightsFor non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

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