Cohesion in texts produced by psychopathic and nonpsychopathic criminal inmates

Although there has been much speculation about psychopaths' distinctive use of speech, to date there have been no published data documenting that psyc hopaths communicate any differently than others. This study examined the cl inical observation that psychopathic speech is poorly integrated compared t o that of controls. 39 inmates from a Wisconsin state penitentiary were ask ed to produce two stories. Cohesion analysis was used to measure how well i ntegrated the narratives were. As predicted by Williamson [Williamson, S. E , (1991), Cohesion and coherence in the speech of psychopathic criminals. U npublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of British Colomhia.], psychopathy was associated with a tendency to use fewer cohesive ties per clause. Contrary to the Williamson (1991) predictions, however, psychopaths did not use more incompetent references than controls. Despite its limitations, this study provides a foundation for future work elucidating psychopathic speech. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.