SELECTION OF A TRAIT AND ABILITY E l MEASURES TO BE USED IN THIS RESEARCH

The purpose of this review of El measures is to identify an ability and trait El measure to be used in this thesis. The identification o f an ability El measure is straight

forward. The MSCEIT is the only published, ability measure o f El, it has good psychometric properties and has been found to be separate from existing personality measures.

The selection of a trait El measure is more complex. The EQ-i (BarOn, 1997) is the only trait El measure that has a published user manual and is the trait El measure that has been most widely used in published studies. However, Matthews et al. (2002) point out that BarOn did not provide detail o f the development o f his model o f El and concerns have also been expressed about the underlying subscales o f the EQ-i

(Petrides & Fumham, 2001; Dawda & Hart, 2000). A number o f studies have also found significant overlap between the ‘big 5 ’ personality traits and the EQ-i (Dawda & Hart, 2000; Mayer et al., 2002; Newsome et al., 2000).

The TEIQue was also reviewed as a trait El measure. There are a number of different versions of the TEIQue and Petrides et al. (2004) have found that there may be a problem with the items in the Social Competence scale o f the long version of the TEIQue. There is also significant overlap between the TEIQue and the ‘big 5’ personality characteristics (Petrides & Fumham, 2003).

A number of concerns have also been raised about the factor structure o f the SSREI scale (Austin et al., 2004). There are two versions o f this measure; 33 and 41 item

scales. Like the TEIQue, the El scale has been found to overlap with the ‘big 5’ personality traits (Saklofske et al., 2003). Qualter et al. (2010) do not believe that the SSREI is an appropriate measure o f El in forensic populations.

The final trait El measure that I reviewed was the TMMS (Salovey et al., 1995). This trait El measure was developed by the same group o f researchers as the MSCEIT and both are based on Mayer & Salovey’s (1997) four branch model of El. On balance, after reviewing the SSREI scale, TEIQue and TMMS, I believe that the fact that the TMMS is shorter, was developed by the same group o f researchers as the MSCEIT and has been found to be separate from the MSCEIT are important factors to consider. The TMMS will therefore be used as the trait El measure in this thesis.

CHAPTER 4 METHOD

1. INTRODUCTION

Many studies have suggested that an emotional deficit may underpin some of the features of psychopathy. The aim of this thesis is to explore the relationship between emotional processing and psychopathic traits. Two measures of psychopathy were administered, the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R; Hare 2003) and the Psychopathic Personality Inventory Revised (PPI-R; Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005). The concept of emotional intelligence (see chapter 3) involves the capacity to perceive emotions, understand those emotions and manage them. Therefore it

appeared that the tools developed to measure emotional intelligence would be ideal to examine the emotional deficit hypothesised to underpin psychopathy and that deficits in emotional intelligence would be manifest in those with high scores on measures o f psychopathy. Two different emotional intelligence tests, the MSCEIT (ability El) and the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS) (trait El) were therefore administered to

participants. Participants also completed two emotional processing tasks; the Detection of Emotional Faces Task (DEFT) and an Emotional Priming Task (EPT) both designed by Professors Snowden & Gray from Cardiff University. I assisted with the development o f the EPT. Participants also completed the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI). The relationship between psychopathy, emotional processing and IQ will therefore also be explored.

2. PARTICIPANTS

Participants were 57 convicted, male offenders located at 3 different prisons. In terms of location, 23 were located at HMP Long Lartin which is a high security prison, 26

of the participants were located at HMP Leyhill which is an open prison and 8 of the participants were located at the Westgate Unit at HMP Frankland which is a specialist unit for offenders who meet the criteria for Dangerous and Severe Personality

Disorder (DSPD). Although HMP Leyhill is an open prison, approximately 120 of the offenders located there have been assessed as high risk sexual and violent offenders. Most o f the participants at HMP Leyhill were in the final stage o f their life sentence but would typically have started their sentences in a high security prison such as HMP Frankland or HMP Long Lartin.

Most of the total sample (81%), were serving life sentences and only 19% determinate sentences. O f the total sample, 68% were convicted o f a violent offence (39 out of the total sample) and 32% of a sexual offence. (I have classified sexual murder as a sexual offence rather than violent offence because the motive was sexual, even though these offenders may only have been convicted o f murder). All 23 of the participants based at HMP Long Lartin were convicted o f violent offences. At HMP Frankland, 4 offenders were convicted of sexual offences (all sexual murders) and 4 convicted of violent offences. At HMP Leyhill, 12 were convicted o f violent offences and 14 were convicted of sexual offences. At HMP Frankland and HMP Leyhill, participants were convicted of both sexual and violent offences. However, all participants located at HMP Long Lartin were convicted o f violent offences.

The mean age of the sample was 38 years old (S.D. = 10.0, range 22-66 years). Most of the sample, (77%) were o f Caucasian origin, 18% of Black Caribbean or Black African origin and 5% were o f Asian origin. Participants’ ethic origin was identified from the Prison Service database that lists offenders’ personal and sentence details.

Table 4.1 Summary o f participants ’ demographic information and scores on the PCL-R, PPI-R and WASI

Frankland (FL) Mean score Long Lartin (LL) Mean score Leyhill (LH) Mean score

P values Post hoc analyses

Ageb _{39.75 33.78 42.00 .01** <.01**( LH> FL)} <.01** (FL>LL) <.01** (LH>LL) Criminal Versatility* 5.25 5.47 3.53 .01** Mann-Whitney Test <.55 LL & FL <.00** LL > LH <.07 FL & LH IQb _{94.57 97.60 103.13 .14} PCL-R total Score* 31.81 18.72 17.23 .000** Mann-Whitney Test <.00** FL > LL <.45 LL & LH <.00 FL > LH PPI-R total Scoreb 297.71 281.80 255.01 .02* N o significant differences *p < .05, **p < .01 aKruskall Wallis Test

bOne way analysis of variance

Table 4.1 summarises participants’ details according to which of the three prisons they were located in. As might be expected, participants located at HMP Leyhill were significantly older than participants located at either HMP Long Lartin or HMP Frankland. The participants at HMP Frankland were also significantly older than the participants at HMP Long Lartin.

Differences also exist between participants at the three different prisons in terms of how criminally versatile they are. Criminal versatility was based on item 20 o f the

PCL-R which reflects how many different categories o f offences an individual has committed. As might be expected, participants from HMP Frankland and HMP Long Lartin were more criminally versatile than those located at HMP Leyhill. No

differences existed between participants at the three prisons in relation to their total IQ measured by the WASI.

The aim o f this thesis was to explore the relationship between psychopathy and

emotional processing. I therefore aimed to identify participants with a range of PCL-R scores and this is why I targeted the DSPD unit at HMP Frankland as I was aware that offenders located on this unit would have high PCL-R scores. Although PCL-R total score was normally distributed (see chapter 5), Levene’s test was significant which means that one o f the assumptions for use o f ANOVA was violated, as a result these data were analysed using the Kruskall Wallis test. As m ight be expected, participants located at HMP Frankland had higher PCL-R scores compared to those located at HMP Long Lartin and HMP Leyhill. No difference was found between participants’ PCL-R scores located at HMP Long Lartin and HMP Leyhill. Although, I found a difference in PPI-R scores between participants located at the three prisons, post hoc analysis did not reveal any significant differences.

To summarise, it is clear that differences do exist between participants located at the three different prisons. Participants at HMP Leyhill were older, less criminally versatile and participants at HMP Long Lartin were all convicted o f violent offences. However, as stated previously, the aim o f my thesis is to explore psychopathy and emotional processing and as a result o f targeting offenders at different prisons, I have ensured that I have a range o f PCL-R scores.

3. IDENTIFICATION OF PARTICIPANTS TO TAKE PART IN THIS