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Purpose: To explore the impact of interpersonal versatility on high‐value (terrorist‐related) detainee behaviour and subsequent interview information across distinct interview phases (namely the first and last interviews). Methods: Police interviews with 48 terrorist detainees framework (mean number of interviews per detainee = 2.93) were coded using the ‘ORBIT’ (Observing Rapport‐Based Interpersonal Techniques; Alison et al., 2014, Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 20, 421). This produced scores for adaptive and maladaptive interpersonal behaviours of detainees and interrogators across four categories: authoritative, passive, confrontational, and cooperative. Mean scores for these variables in the first and last interviews were taken allowing us to analyse the associations between (1) interviewer behaviours and detainee educed information and (2) the indirect effect of interviewer behaviour on information educed through the impact of interviewer adaptive behaviour on detainee adaptive behaviour, separately in the first and last interviews. Results: There was a positive association between detainee engagement and information in both the first and last interviews. Specific adaptive interviewer behaviours were associated with adaptive detainee behaviour in different interviews: cooperative and passive predicting improvements in the first interview and cooperative in the final interview. Maladaptive passive and authoritative interviewer behaviours were negatively associated with adaptive detainee behaviour in the first interview, as did maladaptive confrontational in the final interview. Indirect effects of interviewer behaviours on information were also demonstrated. Conclusions: Interpersonal competence (avoiding maladaptive behaviour) and increasing adaptive behaviours are associated with detainee engagement and information. The differences in specific behaviours at different phases that influence information in the two interviews highlight the importance of interpersonal versatility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which orthodoxy (degree of typicality) and congruence (degree of similarity with own opinion) mediate the influence of expert advice on decision makers' judgments. Overall, 227 members of the public and 60 police officers completed an online questionnaire involving an investigation into a child sex offence. Participants were asked to first (i) formulate their own 'profile' of a likely offender then (ii) estimate the guilt of two presented suspect descriptions (orthodox vs. unorthodox), and, following the presentation of an 'expert's' profile that matched either the orthodox or the unorthodox suspect, (iii) re-evaluate their guilt judgments of the two suspects based on this new advice. Finally, (iv) the perceived similarity (congruence) between the participants' own and the expert profile was assessed. Results revealed two key findings. First, expert profiles that matched a suspect's description elevated perceptions of guilt in that suspect, whilst also, simultaneously, very significantly decreasing the perception of guilt of the alternative suspect. This suggests a powerful rejection and downward revision of the other suspect. Second, perceived similarity of the profile (to one's own profile) was only a significant factor in increasing guilt judgments when assigning guilt to the unorthodox (as opposed to orthodox) suspect. Comparisons of lay judgments with those of police officers revealed few significant differences in effects. The finding that advice is most influential when unorthodox and incongruent suggests that decision makers are more likely to reevaluate judgments when expert advice contributes novel information that contradicts their beliefs. The practical implications of these findings are discussed for profilers, police, and decision research in general. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides an analysis of offender-victim interactions in 223 cases of sexual violence committed in gangs. Cases were derived from archival sources such as law reports. A multivariate analysis revealed four interpersonal themes (dominance, submission, co-operation, and hostility) previously identified in studies of lone sexual assault [Alison and Stein, Vicious Circles: Accounts of stranger sexual assault reflect abusive variants of conventional interactions. J Forensic Psychiatry 12:515–538, 2001]. These themes have also been identified in many other forms of human relating [Wiggins, An informal history of the interpersonal circumplex tradition. J Pers Assess 66:217–233, 1996] and conform to a structure known as the interpersonal circumplex. The circumplex has previously been used to conceptualise the relationships between individuals in terms of dynamic interactions that are mutually influencing. Thus, dominance elicits submission and submission elicits dominance. Each interpersonal style could be further subdivided according to the use of either verbally or physically abusive strategies. Point-Biserial correlations with other aspects of the offence (e.g., mobility of the group, post-offence treatment of the victim) provided additional support for these conceptually different themes and demonstrated that gang rape represents a distorted and violent form of interpersonal relating. Further, this dynamic interaction emerges not just at an individual level, but at a group level, suggesting that the thematic concepts underpinning the interpersonal circumplex can be extended to group activity and sexually aggressive behaviour. Aggr. Behav. 30:449–468, 2004. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study focused on the ways in which a small subset of sadomasochistically-oriented males have incorporated, during the last 12 months, the use of animals into their sexual practices. The respondents (12 men or 7.3% of the entire sample) were derived from a larger survey into the sexual practices and characteristics of sadomasochistically oriented individuals. A matched control group of 12 individuals was also selected from the initial sample. The bestialic participants had both become aware of their sadomasochistic interests and started practising sadomasochistic sex relatively late. Compared to previous studies, they had seldom engaged in sexual activity with animals in childhood or adolescence. They were likely to think that sadomasochistic sex was good for their psychological well-being, that they were in control of their bodies while having sadomasochistic sex, and that they felt safe when practicing sadomasochistic sex. The bestialic respondents were engaged in a wider range of sexual and sadomasochistic behaviors - including spanking, gagging, biting, urolangia, fistfucking, coprophilia, skin branding, and cross-dressing. The sample of the present study suggests that sadomasochistically-oriented individuals who have used animals as part of their sexual activity are overall sexually experimental. Also, they do not closely resemble earlier descriptions of individuals who engage in sexual activity with animals. This suggests that perception of animals as objects of sexual desire can take on many different meanings dependent upon individual predispositions toward other sexual preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. Conventional approaches to offender profiling assume a homology of the characteristics of offenders with their crime scene actions: the more similar two offenders are with respect to background characteristics, the higher the resem-blance in their crime scene behaviour. This implicit working hypothesis is tested empirically. Methods. The study is based on a sample of 100 British male stranger rapists. These individuals were indexed with respect to the similarity in their crime scene actions as derived from witness statements. They were then compared with respect to their socio-demographic features and criminal histories as derived from police records. In a correlational analysis, we tested whether increased similarity in one domain (offence behaviour) coincided with higher resemblance in the other domains (socio-demographic features and previous convictions). Results. There is no positive linear relationship for any of the comparisons, i.e. rapists who offend in a similar fashion are not more similar with respect to age, socio-demographic features (such as employment situation and ethnicity) or their criminal records. Conclusions. These findings indicate no evidence for the assumption of a homol-ogy between crime scene actions and background characteristics for the rapists in the sample. We argue that this result suggests that the homology assumption is too simplistic to provide a basis for offender profiling. Implications for future research include the search for a suitable framework for offender profiling that is grounded in personality psychology. Further, methodological considerations are discussed, such as the potential application of probabilistic scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]