psychological profile assignment

How to Create a Psychological Profile

Introduction: How to Create a Psychological Profile

Hello future psychologist and psychiatrists! I too aspire to be a mental health professional, and have spent countless hours of research to develop my skills! I have created a few psychological profiles on a few key infamous figures, my proudest of these being on Charles Cullen a.k.a the angel of death. I hope to teach you a skill useful in any research based assignment and that will help you in your career assisting those needed guidance in their struggles. Enjoy!

Step 1: Gathering the Tools for Success

First things first, we need our materials! I recommend a laptop that is both speedy and efficient, using a document program such as Google Docs or Microsoft Word, knowledge of the criteria we use to evaluate a subject, and the subject! Mental preparation may also be necessary, depending on the subject you are profiling. Remember, serial killers and murders are interesting, but also have a lasting affect on ones psych. You may find yourself traveling down one dark rabbit hole, so it is important to find partners to help you stay grounded in reality! Remember to see these people for what they are and have done, do not attach emotionally to remain professional, and have fun!

Step 2: Start Your Research!

Research can be a drawn out and boring process, but that's when you know your not researching the right topic. I have never had a boring research session when the topic was psychology. In fact, i have spent most of my senior year researching new psychological studies for fun! Whether this is a project for fun or for school, one key part of research is important. Know the details your supposed to research. The following steps will not only help you familiarize with what is inside a profile, but will also show you the details you must look into. The final thing to remember in researching a topic, especially one you love, is to look under every rock, turn over every rug, email every author who wrote the book on what your researching. You will be surprised on who will reply, and what info that no one else could find, but you did.

Step 3: Identify Your Reason for Creating Your Profile and Your Sources

Since this is at the beginning of the paper, it would be impossible to know all of your sources, but keep in mind it can be a working document. Keep adding sources no matter how irrelevant it seams to your profile. You never know when it can point you to a diagnosis, or fill in a blank. Just remember, anytime you dig into someones personal life, although it may be public, to be careful and respectful. Save your sources, document reasons a person might be referred to you as a mental health professional, and again, be safe and smart!

Step 4: Research Your Subject

When making a psychological profile you need a subject. The more media or information on the subject, the better. Keep in mind, if you know the subject, you must keep this professional. Even though it's possible you have bias or even knowledge about the subjects activities, you must remain professional. Any new information should be logged as unbiased as possible. You need to first present a current concert. This is like the reason for referral, but your professional opinion on why you are concerned with the patient, which credits your need to create a profile and diagnose the subject. Then you need to research the background history. Key subjects include: Pregnancy and birth history, developmental history ( 7 months to 9 years old), childhood medical history, high school/teen years information, and adult life movement. Next you will want to research the subjects family, any previous history of mental illness, preexisting conditions, birth and death places, unusual deaths, abuse conditions, ect. You will literal be digging through a persons family baggage, but this will necessary in determining the subjects possible psychosis. Then you'll want to find any information on previous evaluations. Compile all this new information and the put it together on your word document.

Step 5: Research Your Subject Part 2

And now for the fun part of the profile research; Behavior Observations! This is the part of the profile where you go through the subjects life and find reports and articles describing his/her behavior at every critical point in their life. First find the reasons your subject has been tested in the past, and record them. Then proceed to record all the data found on behavior in their home life, school life, military life, secondary education, and work life. Record grades, major behavior tests, any significant behavior issues, any point where there was abuse or abusive behavior, any time subject was bullied, or any other anomaly. Remember, as long as you provide evidence, any information is useful!

Step 6: Type Up Your Diagnosis and the Results of Your Research!

You have put in the work, now finish the job! You have unlimited resources at your finger tips. By now, you know your subject better than they know them selves! You have the tools to diagnose their psychosis and in special cases, the type of murderer they were. The key in this step, is to be specific, provide evidence for diagnosis, and if necessary, present further evidence if you are contradicting another report. Remember, if your subject is a high profile target, do not take the medias diagnosis. Make your own! Use your research to explain why you have picked this diagnosis, and offer treatments you have researched to help support the family or help the patient.

Step 7: Check for Accuracy and Publish

What is a Psychological Profile? 10 Key Elements

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Decoding the Human Mind: The Art and Science of a Psychological Profile

The concept of a psychological profile has captivated both the realms of professional psychology and popular culture, often portrayed as a key tool in understanding the complex tapestry of human behavior. In essence, a psychological profile is more than just a collection of traits and tendencies; it is a comprehensive portrait that encapsulates the nuances of an individual’s mental and emotional landscape. It serves as a bridge connecting various psychological components, offering insights into how these elements interact to shape a person’s actions, reactions, and interactions with the world. It is often used used in fields like forensic psychology, clinical psychology, and law enforcement.

In this article I will give a definition of what a psychological profile is and establish its purpose, followed by an explanation of the 10 key elements that make a psychological profile.

What is a psychological profile ?

A psychological profile is a methodical and comprehensive analysis of an individual’s psychological characteristics. It integrates various aspects of a person’s personality, behavior, cognitive abilities, emotional patterns, and social interactions. This profile is developed through a systematic collection of data obtained from interviews, psychological assessments, observations, and sometimes background checks.

What is the purpose of a psychological profile ?

The purpose of a psychological profile is to gain a deep and nuanced understanding of an individual, which can be applied in diverse contexts such as clinical therapy, forensic analysis, organizational settings, or personal development. By delineating the intricate web of psychological elements, a psychological profile helps in predicting behavior, understanding motivations, and devising strategies for intervention or support.

READ MORE: Donald Trump: A Psychological Profile

Here are 10 key elements of a psychological profile:

1. Personal Background : This includes the individual’s family history, education, upbringing, and significant life events. Understanding the context in which a person grew up and developed can provide insights into their current behavior and personality.

2. Behavioral Patterns : This involves the observation and analysis of the individual’s behavior. This can include their habits, lifestyle choices, interactions with others, and reactions to different situations.

3. Psychological Characteristics : This focuses on the individual’s personality traits, including their temperament, emotional responses, motivations, and other psychological traits. Tools like personality tests or assessments may be used to gain insights into these characteristics.

4. Mental Health Status : The profile may include an assessment of the individual’s mental health, identifying any psychological disorders, stress levels, coping mechanisms, and overall mental well-being.

5. Cognitive Abilities : This includes an assessment of the individual’s intelligence, problem-solving skills, decision-making processes, and memory. Cognitive abilities play a significant role in how a person perceives and interacts with the world.

6. Social Relationships : Analyzing an individual’s relationships with family, friends, colleagues, and others can provide important clues about their social skills, interpersonal dynamics, and influence of social factors on their behavior.

7. Motivations and Goals : Understanding what drives an individual, their aspirations, fears, and goals can offer insights into their actions and choices.

8. Attitudes and Beliefs : This encompasses the individual’s values, beliefs, prejudices, and attitudes, which can significantly influence their behavior and interactions with others.

9. Risk Assessment : In some cases, particularly in forensic settings, the profile may include an assessment of the individual’s potential for future harmful behaviors or reoffending.

10. Response to Past Interventions : If applicable, how the individual has responded to previous psychological interventions, treatments, or corrections can provide valuable information for future approaches.

In conclusion:

Each psychological profile is unique and tailored to the individual being assessed. The information is gathered through a combination of interviews, observations, psychological tests, and review of historical records. The profile is used for various purposes, including therapy, legal cases, and understanding criminal behavior.

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Psychology Profiles: Unveiling the Complexity of Human Behavior

Psychological profiles, like puzzle pieces, hold the key to deciphering the intricate tapestry of human behavior, offering a glimpse into the hidden depths of the mind. These fascinating constructs serve as windows into the complex world of human psychology, revealing patterns, motivations, and tendencies that shape our actions and interactions. But what exactly are psychological profiles, and why have they become such an integral part of understanding the human psyche?

At its core, a psychological profile is a comprehensive snapshot of an individual’s mental and emotional characteristics. It’s like a mental fingerprint, unique to each person, capturing their personality traits, cognitive abilities, emotional tendencies, and behavioral patterns. These profiles aren’t just abstract concepts; they’re powerful tools that help us make sense of the bewildering diversity of human behavior.

The importance of psychological profiles in understanding human behavior cannot be overstated. They provide a framework for interpreting actions, predicting responses, and tailoring interventions. Whether it’s in clinical settings, forensic investigations, or even in the realm of Mass Effect psychological profiles , these profiles offer invaluable insights into the inner workings of the mind.

The history of psychological profiling is a tale of scientific curiosity and relentless pursuit of understanding. It’s a journey that began in the early 20th century with pioneers like Carl Jung and his theory of psychological types. As the field of psychology evolved, so did the methods and applications of profiling. Today, psychological profiles are used in a wide array of contexts, from clinical diagnosis to criminal investigations, and even in the creation of complex fictional characters in video games.

Types of Psychology Profiles: Unraveling the Threads of Human Complexity

Just as there are many facets to human behavior, there are various types of psychological profiles, each focusing on different aspects of our mental landscape. Let’s dive into this colorful tapestry of profiles, shall we?

First up, we have personality profiles. These are like the backbone of psychological profiling, capturing the essence of who we are. They explore traits like extroversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, and more. Ever wondered why some people thrive in social situations while others prefer solitude? Personality profiles help explain these differences.

Next, we have behavioral profiles. These focus on observable actions and patterns. They’re particularly useful in fields like forensic psychology, where understanding behavioral tendencies can be crucial. It’s fascinating how these profiles can reveal so much about a person, even in cases of catfishing psychology , where behavior online may not match reality.

Cognitive profiles, on the other hand, delve into the realm of thinking and problem-solving. They explore how individuals process information, make decisions, and approach challenges. These profiles are particularly valuable in educational settings and in understanding conditions like prosopagnosia , where cognitive processes related to face recognition are impaired.

Emotional profiles paint a picture of an individual’s emotional landscape. They explore how people experience and express emotions, their emotional regulation abilities, and their overall emotional intelligence. These profiles can be incredibly insightful in therapeutic settings and in understanding interpersonal dynamics.

Lastly, we have social profiles, which examine how individuals interact with others and function within social structures. These profiles can reveal fascinating insights into social behavior, including phenomena like the psychology behind not using profile pictures on social media.

Methods of Creating Psychology Profiles: The Art and Science of Mind Mapping

Creating a psychological profile is a bit like being a detective of the mind. It requires a keen eye, a diverse toolkit, and a healthy dose of scientific rigor. Let’s peek into the methods psychologists use to craft these intricate profiles.

Psychological assessments and tests form the backbone of profiling. These can range from personality inventories like the Big Five to intelligence tests and emotional quotient assessments. It’s a bit like taking a standardized test, but instead of measuring academic knowledge, these tests gauge various aspects of your psyche.

Interviews and observations are another crucial tool in the profiler’s arsenal. There’s something irreplaceable about face-to-face interactions when it comes to understanding human behavior. A skilled interviewer can pick up on subtle cues, inconsistencies, and patterns that might not be apparent in written assessments.

Behavioral analysis takes things a step further by examining patterns of action over time. This method is particularly useful in forensic settings and in understanding complex behavioral disorders. It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle of someone’s actions to reveal the bigger picture of their psychological makeup.

Neuropsychological evaluations bring the brain into the equation. These assessments explore the relationship between brain function and behavior. They’re particularly valuable in understanding cognitive disorders and in fields like LPA psychology , where latent profile analysis is used to identify subgroups within populations.

The real magic happens when psychologists integrate multiple data sources. By combining information from various assessments, interviews, and observations, they can create a comprehensive and nuanced profile. It’s like painting a portrait with many different brushes – each stroke adds depth and detail to the final image.

Applications of Psychology Profiles: From Clinics to Crime Scenes

The applications of psychological profiles are as diverse as human behavior itself. These profiles have found their way into numerous fields, each benefiting from the insights they provide.

In clinical psychology and mental health, profiles are invaluable tools for diagnosis and treatment planning. They help clinicians understand the unique needs of each patient, tailoring interventions to their specific psychological makeup. It’s like having a roadmap of a person’s mind, guiding the therapeutic journey.

Forensic psychology and criminal profiling have perhaps the most dramatic application of psychological profiles. Here, profiles are used to understand criminal behavior, predict future actions, and even assist in solving crimes. It’s a field that has captured the public imagination, thanks in part to popular media portrayals.

Organizational psychology leverages profiles for employee selection, team building, and leadership development. By understanding the psychological makeup of individuals and teams, companies can create more harmonious and productive work environments. It’s like finding the right pieces to complete a complex organizational puzzle.

In educational psychology, profiles help in student assessment and in tailoring learning experiences. They can reveal learning styles, cognitive strengths and weaknesses, and even potential learning disabilities. This allows educators to create more effective and personalized learning environments.

Marketing and consumer behavior analysis also make extensive use of psychological profiles. By understanding the psychological drivers behind consumer choices, marketers can create more effective campaigns and products. It’s a bit like being able to read the collective mind of the market.

Limitations and Ethical Considerations: Navigating the Murky Waters

While psychological profiles offer powerful insights, they’re not without their limitations and ethical concerns. It’s crucial to approach profiling with a critical eye and a strong ethical compass.

One of the primary concerns is the potential for bias in profiling. Our understanding of human psychology is still evolving, and cultural, racial, and gender biases can inadvertently creep into profiling methods. It’s a bit like trying to view the world through a lens that might be slightly distorted – we need to constantly check and adjust our perspective.

Cultural considerations are another crucial aspect. Psychological profiles developed in one cultural context may not be universally applicable. The way we think, feel, and behave is heavily influenced by our cultural background, and profiles need to account for this diversity.

Privacy concerns are increasingly relevant in our data-driven world. The detailed nature of psychological profiles raises questions about data protection and the potential for misuse. It’s a delicate balance between gaining valuable insights and respecting individual privacy.

The misuse of psychological profiles is a serious ethical concern. In the wrong hands, these profiles could be used to manipulate or exploit individuals. This is particularly relevant in fields like marketing and political campaigning, where psychological insights could be used to sway opinions and behaviors.

Ongoing debates in the field of psychology continue to shape our understanding of profiling. Questions about the validity of certain profiling methods, the role of nature versus nurture, and the ethical implications of predictive profiling are all hot topics of discussion among psychologists.

Future Trends in Psychology Profiling: The Frontier of Mind Exploration

As we peer into the future of psychological profiling, we see a landscape rich with potential and ripe for innovation. The field is evolving rapidly, driven by technological advancements and new scientific discoveries.

Advancements in technology and AI are revolutionizing the way we create and interpret psychological profiles. Machine learning algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data, identifying patterns and correlations that might escape human observation. It’s like having a super-powered assistant in the profiling process.

The integration of neuroscience and genetics is opening up new frontiers in psychological profiling. By understanding the biological underpinnings of behavior, we can create more comprehensive and accurate profiles. This interdisciplinary approach is like adding a new dimension to our understanding of the human mind.

Personalized interventions based on profiles are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Whether in therapy, education, or organizational settings, tailored approaches based on individual psychological profiles are showing promising results. It’s like having a custom-made solution for each unique mind.

Cross-cultural profiling techniques are evolving to meet the needs of our globalized world. Psychologists are developing methods that can account for cultural differences while still providing valuable insights. It’s a challenging but necessary evolution in the field.

As the power and reach of psychological profiling grow, so does the need for robust ethical guidelines and regulations. The psychological community is actively working on developing frameworks to ensure that profiling is used responsibly and ethically. It’s a crucial step in ensuring that this powerful tool is used for the benefit of individuals and society.

The journey through the world of psychological profiles is a fascinating exploration of the human mind. From the clinician’s office to the psychology clusters of research, these profiles continue to unveil patterns in human behavior and cognition that were once hidden from view.

As we’ve seen, psychological profiles are powerful tools that offer deep insights into human behavior. They help us understand ourselves and others better, paving the way for more effective interventions, more harmonious relationships, and a deeper appreciation of human diversity.

However, with great power comes great responsibility. The ethical use of psychological profiles is paramount. As we continue to refine our profiling techniques and expand their applications, we must remain vigilant about potential misuse and respectful of individual privacy and cultural differences.

Looking to the future, the field of psychological profiling stands on the brink of exciting developments. Advances in technology, neuroscience, and cross-cultural understanding promise to make profiles even more accurate and insightful. For those intrigued by this field, the path to becoming a psychological profiler offers a rewarding career in unraveling the mysteries of the human mind.

As we continue to piece together the puzzle of human behavior, psychological profiles will undoubtedly play a crucial role. They are our map in the vast and complex terrain of the human psyche, guiding us towards a deeper understanding of ourselves and others. In this ongoing journey of discovery, each profile adds a new piece to the grand picture of human nature, reminding us of the beautiful complexity that makes each of us uniquely human.

References:

1. American Psychological Association. (2020). Personality assessment. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/topics/personality/assessment

2. Borum, R., Fein, R., Vossekuil, B., & Berglund, J. (1999). Threat assessment: Defining an approach for evaluating risk of targeted violence. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 17(3), 323-337.

3. Canter, D., & Youngs, D. (2009). Investigative psychology: Offender profiling and the analysis of criminal action. John Wiley & Sons.

4. Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Psychological Assessment Resources.

5. Kocsis, R. N. (Ed.). (2006). Criminal profiling: Principles and practice. Humana Press.

6. Lichtenberger, E. O., & Kaufman, A. S. (2009). Essentials of WAIS-IV assessment. John Wiley & Sons.

7. Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2008). Emotional intelligence: New ability or eclectic traits? American Psychologist, 63(6), 503-517.

8. Norcross, J. C., & Wampold, B. E. (2011). What works for whom: Tailoring psychotherapy to the person. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 67(2), 127-132.

9. Saucier, G., & Goldberg, L. R. (2001). Lexical studies of indigenous personality factors: Premises, products, and prospects. Journal of Personality, 69(6), 847-879.

10. Turvey, B. E. (2011). Criminal profiling: An introduction to behavioral evidence analysis. Academic Press.

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A common language

The Everything DiSC ® model provides a common language people can use to better understand themselves and those they interact with—and then use this knowledge to reduce conflict and improve working relationships. Your DiSC report focuses on your personality and behavioral style, describing your behavior in various situations—for example, how you respond to challenges, how you influence others, what is your preferred pace, and how you respond to rules and procedures. This in turn will help you ignite teamwork, leadership, and communication in the workplace and beyond.

What does DiSC mean?

DiSC is an acronym that stands for the four main personality profiles described in the DiSC model: (D)ominance, (i)nfluence, (S)teadiness and (C)onscientiousness.

People with D personalities tend to be confident and place an emphasis on accomplishing bottom-line results.

People with i personalities tend to be more open and place an emphasis on relationships and influencing or persuading others.

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Everything DiSC also measures priorities (the words around the circle), providing more nuanced and memorable feedback in profiles.

The process is simple:

• Take a short DiSC personality assessment to determine where you “fit” into the four main personality reference styles. The adaptive DiSC personality test itself takes 15 to 20 minutes and includes approximately 80 questions.
• Upon completion you’ll receive a personalized profile where you’ll learn about your unique behavioral style, strategies for engaging with others, your needs, and preferred environment. Learn more about how the DiSC personality test works
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How to Write a Psychology Case Study: Expert Tips

Have you ever heard of Phineas Gage, a man whose life story became a legendary case study in the annals of psychology? In the mid-19th century, Gage, a railroad construction foreman, survived a near-fatal accident when an iron rod pierced through his skull, severely damaging his brain. What makes this tale truly remarkable is that, despite his physical recovery, Gage's personality underwent a dramatic transformation. He went from being a mild-mannered and responsible individual to becoming impulsive and unpredictable. This remarkable case marked the dawn of psychology's fascination with understanding the intricate workings of the human mind. Case studies, like the one of Phineas Gage, have been a cornerstone of our understanding of human behavior ever since.

Short Description

In this article, we'll unravel the secrets of case study psychology as the powerful tool of this field. We will explore its essence and why these investigations are so crucial in understanding human behavior. Discover the various types of case studies, gain insights from real-world examples, and uncover the essential steps and expert tips on how to craft your very own compelling study. Get ready to embark on a comprehensive exploration of this invaluable research method.

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Our team of skilled psychologists and wordsmiths is here to craft a masterpiece from your ideas.

What Is a Case Study in Psychology

A case study psychology definition can be compared to a magnifying glass turned toward a single individual, group, or phenomenon. According to our paper writer , it's a focused investigation that delves deep into the unique complexities of a particular subject. Rather than sifting through mountains of data, a case study allows us to zoom in and scrutinize the details, uncovering the 'whys' and 'hows' that often remain hidden in broader research.

A psychology case study is not about generalizations or sweeping theories; it's about the intricacies of real-life situations. It's the detective work of the field, aiming to unveil the 'story behind the data' and offering profound insights into human behavior, emotions, and experiences. So, while psychology as a whole may study the forest, a case study takes you on a journey through the trees, revealing the unique patterns, quirks, and secrets that make each one distinct.

The Significance of Psychology Case Studies

Writing a psychology case study plays a pivotal role in the world of research and understanding the human mind. Here's why they are so crucial, according to our ' do my essay ' experts:

• In-Depth Exploration: Case studies provide an opportunity to explore complex human behaviors and experiences in great detail. By diving deep into a specific case, researchers can uncover nuances that might be overlooked in broader studies.
• Unique Perspectives: Every individual and situation is unique, and case studies allow us to capture this diversity. They offer a chance to highlight the idiosyncrasies that make people who they are and situations what they are.
• Theory Testing: Case studies are a way to test and refine psychological theories in real-world scenarios. They provide practical insights that can validate or challenge existing hypotheses.
• Practical Applications: The knowledge gained from case studies can be applied to various fields, from clinical psychology to education and business. It helps professionals make informed decisions and develop effective interventions.
• Holistic Understanding: Case studies often involve a comprehensive examination of an individual's life or a particular phenomenon. This holistic approach contributes to a more profound comprehension of human behavior and the factors that influence it.

Varieties of a Psychology Case Study

When considering how to write a psychology case study, you should remember that it is a diverse field, and so are the case studies conducted within it. Let's explore the different types from our ' write my research paper ' experts:

• Descriptive Case Studies: These focus on providing a detailed description of a particular case or phenomenon. They serve as a foundation for further research and can be valuable in generating hypotheses.
• Exploratory Case Studies: Exploratory studies aim to investigate novel or scarcely explored areas within psychology. They often pave the way for more in-depth research by generating new questions and ideas.
• Explanatory Case Studies: These delve into the 'why' and 'how' of a particular case, seeking to explain the underlying factors or mechanisms that drive a particular behavior or event.
• Instrumental Case Studies: In these cases, the individual or situation under examination is instrumental in testing or illustrating a particular theory or concept in psychology.
• Intrinsic Case Studies: Contrary to instrumental case studies, intrinsic ones explore a case for its own unique significance, aiming to understand the specific details and intricacies of that case without primarily serving as a tool to test broader theories.
• Collective Case Studies: These studies involve the examination of multiple cases to identify common patterns or differences. They are helpful when researchers seek to generalize findings across a group.
• Longitudinal Case Studies: Longitudinal studies track a case over an extended period, allowing researchers to observe changes and developments over time.
• Cross-Sectional Case Studies: In contrast, cross-sectional case studies involve the examination of a case at a single point in time, offering a snapshot of that particular moment.

The Advantages of Psychology Case Studies

Learning how to write a case study offers numerous benefits, making it a valuable research method in the field. Here are some of the advantages:

• Rich Insights: Case studies provide in-depth insights into individual behavior and experiences, allowing researchers to uncover unique patterns, motivations, and complexities.
• Holistic Understanding: By examining a case in its entirety, researchers can gain a comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence human behavior, including psychological, environmental, and contextual aspects.
• Theory Development: Case studies contribute to theory development by providing real-world examples that can validate or refine existing psychological theories.
• Personalized Approach: Researchers can tailor their methods to fit the specific case, making it a flexible approach that can adapt to the unique characteristics of the subject.
• Application in Practice: The knowledge gained from case studies can be applied in various practical settings, such as clinical psychology, education, and organizational management, to develop more effective interventions and solutions.
• Real-World Relevance: Psychology case studies often address real-life issues, making the findings relevant and applicable to everyday situations.
• Qualitative Data: They generate qualitative data, which can be rich in detail and context, offering a deeper understanding of the subject matter.
• Hypothesis Generation: Case studies can spark new research questions and hypotheses, guiding further investigations in psychology.
• Ethical Considerations: In some cases, case studies can be conducted in situations where experimental research may not be ethical, providing valuable insights that would otherwise be inaccessible.
• Educational Value: Case studies are commonly used as teaching tools, helping students apply theoretical knowledge to practical scenarios and encouraging critical thinking.

How to Write a Psychology Case Study

Crafting a psychology case study requires a meticulous approach that combines the art of storytelling with the precision of scientific analysis. In this section, we'll provide you with a step-by-step guide on how to create an engaging and informative psychology case study, from selecting the right subject to presenting your findings effectively.

Step 1: Gathering Information for Subject Profiling

To create a comprehensive psychology case study, the first crucial step is gathering all the necessary information to build a detailed profile of your subject. This profile forms the backbone of your study, offering a deeper understanding of the individual or situation you're examining.

According to our case study writing service , you should begin by collecting a range of data, including personal history, demographics, behavioral observations, and any relevant documentation. Interviews, surveys, and direct observations are common methods to gather this information. Ensure that the data you collect is relevant to the specific aspects of the subject's life or behavior that you intend to investigate.

By meticulously gathering and organizing this data, you'll lay the foundation for a robust case study that not only informs your readers but also provides the context needed to make meaningful observations and draw insightful conclusions.

Step 2: Selecting a Case Study Method

Once you have gathered all the essential information about your subject, the next step in crafting a psychology case study is to choose the most appropriate case study method. The method you select will determine how you approach the analysis and presentation of your findings. Here are some common case study methods to consider:

• Single-Subject Case Study: This method focuses on a single individual or a particular event, offering a detailed examination of that subject's experiences and behaviors.
• Comparative Case Study: In this approach, you analyze two or more cases to draw comparisons or contrasts, revealing patterns or differences among them.
• Longitudinal Case Study: A longitudinal study involves tracking a subject or group over an extended period, observing changes and developments over time.
• Cross-Sectional Case Study: This method involves analyzing subjects at a specific point in time, offering a snapshot of their current state.
• Exploratory Case Study: Exploratory studies are ideal for investigating new or underexplored areas within psychology.
• Explanatory Case Study: If your goal is to uncover the underlying factors and mechanisms behind a specific behavior or phenomenon, the explanatory case study is a suitable choice.

Step 3: Gathering Background Information on the Subject

In the process of learning how to write a psychology case study, it's essential to delve into the subject's background to build a complete and meaningful narrative. The background information serves as a crucial context for understanding the individual or situation under investigation.

To gather this information effectively:

• Personal History: Explore the subject's life history, including their upbringing, family background, education, and career path. These details provide insights into their development and experiences.
• Demographics: Collect demographic data, such as age, gender, and cultural background, as part of your data collection process. These factors can be influential in understanding behavior and experiences.
• Relevant Events: Identify any significant life events, experiences, or transitions that might have had an impact on the subject's psychology and behavior.
• Psychological Factors: Assess the subject's psychological profile, including personality traits, cognitive abilities, and emotional well-being, if applicable.
• Social and Environmental Factors: Consider the subject's social and environmental context, including relationships, living conditions, and cultural influences.

Step 4: Detailing the Subject's Challenges

While writing a psychology case study, it is crucial to provide a thorough description of the subject's symptoms or the challenges they are facing. This step allows you to dive deeper into the specific issues that are the focus of your study, providing clarity and context for your readers.

To effectively describe the subject's symptoms or challenges, consider the following from our psychology essay writing service :

• Symptomatology: Enumerate the symptoms, behaviors, or conditions that the subject is experiencing. This could include emotional states, cognitive patterns, or any psychological distress.
• Onset and Duration: Specify when the symptoms or challenges began and how long they have persisted. This timeline can offer insights into the progression of the issue.
• Impact: Discuss the impact of these symptoms on the subject's daily life, relationships, and overall well-being. Consider their functional impairment and how it relates to the observed issues.
• Relevant Diagnoses: If applicable, mention any psychological or psychiatric diagnoses that have been made in relation to the subject's symptoms. This information can shed light on the clinical context of the case.

Step 5: Analyzing Data and Establishing a Diagnosis

Once you have gathered all the necessary information and described the subject's symptoms or challenges, the next critical step is to analyze the data and, if applicable, establish a diagnosis.

To effectively analyze the data and potentially make a diagnosis:

• Data Synthesis: Organize and synthesize the collected data, bringing together all the relevant information in a coherent and structured manner.
• Pattern Recognition: Identify patterns, themes, and connections within the data. Look for recurring behaviors, triggers, or factors that might contribute to the observed symptoms or challenges.
• Comparison with Diagnostic Criteria: If the study involves diagnosing a psychological condition, compare the subject's symptoms and experiences with established diagnostic criteria, such as those found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).
• Professional Consultation: It is advisable to consult with qualified professionals, such as clinical psychologists or psychiatrists, to ensure that the diagnosis, if applicable, is accurate and well-informed.
• Thorough Assessment: Ensure a comprehensive evaluation of the data, considering all possible factors and nuances before reaching any conclusions.

Step 6: Choosing an Intervention Strategy

Choosing an appropriate intervention approach is a pivotal phase in case study psychology, especially if your subject's case involves therapeutic considerations. Here's how to navigate this step effectively:

• Review Findings: Revisit the data and analysis you've conducted to gain a comprehensive understanding of the subject's symptoms, challenges, and needs.
• Consultation: If you're not a qualified mental health professional, it's advisable to consult with experts in the field, such as clinical psychologists or psychiatrists. They can offer valuable insights and recommendations for treatment.
• Tailored Approach: Select a treatment approach that is tailored to the subject's specific needs and diagnosis, if applicable. This could involve psychotherapy, medication, lifestyle changes, or a combination of interventions.
• Goal Setting: Clearly define the goals and objectives of the chosen treatment approach. What do you hope to achieve, and how will progress be measured?
• Informed Consent: If the subject is involved in the decision-making process, ensure they provide informed consent and are fully aware of the chosen treatment's details, potential benefits, and risks.
• Implementation and Monitoring: Once the treatment plan is established, put it into action and closely monitor the subject's progress. Make necessary adjustments based on their responses and evolving needs.
• Ethical Considerations: Be mindful of ethical standards and maintain the subject's confidentiality and well-being throughout the treatment process.

Step 7: Explaining Treatment Objectives and Procedures

In the final phases of your psychology case study, it's essential to provide a clear and detailed description of the treatment goals and processes that have been implemented. This step ensures that your readers understand the therapeutic journey and its intended outcomes.

Here's how to effectively describe treatment goals and processes:

• Specific Goals: Outline the specific goals of the chosen treatment approach. What are you aiming to achieve in terms of the subject's well-being, symptom reduction, or overall improvement?
• Interventions: Describe the therapeutic interventions that have been employed, including psychotherapeutic techniques, medications, or other strategies. Explain how these interventions are intended to address the subject's challenges.
• Timelines: Specify the expected timeline for achieving treatment goals. This may include short-term and long-term objectives, as well as milestones for assessing progress.
• Monitoring and Evaluation: Discuss the methods used to monitor and evaluate the subject's response to treatment. How are you measuring progress or setbacks, and how frequently are assessments conducted?
• Adjustments: Explain how the treatment plan is adaptable as you would in a persuasive essay . If modifications to the goals or interventions are required, clarify the decision-making process for making such adjustments.
• Collaboration: If relevant, highlight any collaboration with other professionals involved in the subject's care, emphasizing a multidisciplinary approach for comprehensive treatment.
• Patient Involvement: If the subject is actively engaged in their treatment, detail their role, responsibilities, and any tools or resources provided to support their participation.

Step 8: Crafting the Discussion and Concluding Remarks

In the final phase of your psychology case study, the discussion section is where you interpret the findings, reflect on the significance of your study, and offer insights into the broader implications of the case. Here's how to effectively write this section:

• Interpretation: Begin by interpreting the data and analysis you've presented in your case study. What do the findings reveal about the subject's psychology, behavior, or experiences?
• Relevance to Research Questions: Discuss how your findings align with or deviate from the initial research questions or hypotheses you set out to investigate.
• Comparison with Literature: Compare your findings with existing literature and research in the field of psychology. Highlight any consistencies or disparities and explain their significance.
• Clinical Considerations: If your case study has clinical or practical relevance, address the implications for therapeutic approaches, interventions, or clinical practices.
• Generalizability: Evaluate the extent to which the insights from your case study can be generalized to a broader population or other similar cases.
• Strengths and Limitations: Be candid about the strengths and limitations of your case study. Acknowledge any constraints or biases and explain how they might have influenced the results.
• Future Research Directions: Suggest areas for future research or additional case studies that could build on your findings and deepen our understanding of the subject matter.
• Conclusion: Summarize the key takeaways from your case study and provide a concise conclusion that encapsulates the main findings and their significance.

5 Helpful Tips for Crafting a Psychology Case Study

Much like learning how to write a synthesis essay , writing a compelling case study involves careful planning and attention to detail. Here are some essential guidelines to help you in the process:

• Consider Cultural Sensitivity: Recognize the importance of cultural diversity and sensitivity in your case study. Take into account the cultural background of your subject and its potential impact on their behavior and experiences.
• Use Clear Citations: Properly cite all sources, including previous research, theories, and relevant literature. Accurate citations lend credibility to your case study and acknowledge the work of others.
• Engage in Peer Discussion: Engage in discussions with peers or colleagues in the field throughout the case study process. Collaborative brainstorming and sharing insights can lead to a more well-rounded study.
• Be Mindful of Ethics: Continuously monitor and reassess the ethical considerations of your case study, especially when it involves sensitive topics or individuals. Prioritize the well-being and rights of your participants.
• Practice Patience and Persistence: Case studies can be time-consuming and may encounter setbacks. Exercise patience and persistence to ensure the quality and comprehensiveness of your research.

Case Study Psychology Example

In this psychology case study example, we delve into a compelling story that serves as a window into the fascinating realm of psychological research, offering valuable insights and practical applications.

Final Outlook

As we conclude this comprehensive writing guide on how to write a psychology case study, remember that every case holds a unique story waiting to be unraveled. The art of crafting a compelling case study lies in your hands, offering a window into the intricate world of the human mind. We encourage you to embark on your own investigative journeys, armed with the knowledge and skills acquired here, to contribute to the ever-evolving landscape of psychology.

Ready to Unravel the Mysteries of the Human Mind?

Our team of psychologists and researchers is adept at transforming complex concepts into engaging stories, ensuring that when you request us to ' write my case study for me ,' your unique vision is effectively brought to life.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

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What Is a Case Study?

Weighing the pros and cons of this method of research

Verywell / Colleen Tighe

• Pros and Cons

What Types of Case Studies Are Out There?

Where do you find data for a case study, how do i write a psychology case study.

A case study is an in-depth study of one person, group, or event. In a case study, nearly every aspect of the subject's life and history is analyzed to seek patterns and causes of behavior. Case studies can be used in many different fields, including psychology, medicine, education, anthropology, political science, and social work.

The point of a case study is to learn as much as possible about an individual or group so that the information can be generalized to many others. Unfortunately, case studies tend to be highly subjective, and it is sometimes difficult to generalize results to a larger population.

While case studies focus on a single individual or group, they follow a format similar to other types of psychology writing. If you are writing a case study, we got you—here are some rules of APA format to reference.  

At a Glance

A case study, or an in-depth study of a person, group, or event, can be a useful research tool when used wisely. In many cases, case studies are best used in situations where it would be difficult or impossible for you to conduct an experiment. They are helpful for looking at unique situations and allow researchers to gather a lot of˜ information about a specific individual or group of people. However, it's important to be cautious of any bias we draw from them as they are highly subjective.

What Are the Benefits and Limitations of Case Studies?

A case study can have its strengths and weaknesses. Researchers must consider these pros and cons before deciding if this type of study is appropriate for their needs.

One of the greatest advantages of a case study is that it allows researchers to investigate things that are often difficult or impossible to replicate in a lab. Some other benefits of a case study:

• Allows researchers to capture information on the 'how,' 'what,' and 'why,' of something that's implemented
• Gives researchers the chance to collect information on why one strategy might be chosen over another
• Permits researchers to develop hypotheses that can be explored in experimental research

On the other hand, a case study can have some drawbacks:

• It cannot necessarily be generalized to the larger population
• Cannot demonstrate cause and effect
• It may not be scientifically rigorous
• It can lead to bias

Researchers may choose to perform a case study if they want to explore a unique or recently discovered phenomenon. Through their insights, researchers develop additional ideas and study questions that might be explored in future studies.

It's important to remember that the insights from case studies cannot be used to determine cause-and-effect relationships between variables. However, case studies may be used to develop hypotheses that can then be addressed in experimental research.

Case Study Examples

There have been a number of notable case studies in the history of psychology. Much of  Freud's work and theories were developed through individual case studies. Some great examples of case studies in psychology include:

• Anna O : Anna O. was a pseudonym of a woman named Bertha Pappenheim, a patient of a physician named Josef Breuer. While she was never a patient of Freud's, Freud and Breuer discussed her case extensively. The woman was experiencing symptoms of a condition that was then known as hysteria and found that talking about her problems helped relieve her symptoms. Her case played an important part in the development of talk therapy as an approach to mental health treatment.
• Phineas Gage : Phineas Gage was a railroad employee who experienced a terrible accident in which an explosion sent a metal rod through his skull, damaging important portions of his brain. Gage recovered from his accident but was left with serious changes in both personality and behavior.
• Genie : Genie was a young girl subjected to horrific abuse and isolation. The case study of Genie allowed researchers to study whether language learning was possible, even after missing critical periods for language development. Her case also served as an example of how scientific research may interfere with treatment and lead to further abuse of vulnerable individuals.

Such cases demonstrate how case research can be used to study things that researchers could not replicate in experimental settings. In Genie's case, her horrific abuse denied her the opportunity to learn a language at critical points in her development.

This is clearly not something researchers could ethically replicate, but conducting a case study on Genie allowed researchers to study phenomena that are otherwise impossible to reproduce.

There are a few different types of case studies that psychologists and other researchers might use:

• Collective case studies : These involve studying a group of individuals. Researchers might study a group of people in a certain setting or look at an entire community. For example, psychologists might explore how access to resources in a community has affected the collective mental well-being of those who live there.
• Descriptive case studies : These involve starting with a descriptive theory. The subjects are then observed, and the information gathered is compared to the pre-existing theory.
• Explanatory case studies : These   are often used to do causal investigations. In other words, researchers are interested in looking at factors that may have caused certain things to occur.
• Exploratory case studies : These are sometimes used as a prelude to further, more in-depth research. This allows researchers to gather more information before developing their research questions and hypotheses .
• Instrumental case studies : These occur when the individual or group allows researchers to understand more than what is initially obvious to observers.
• Intrinsic case studies : This type of case study is when the researcher has a personal interest in the case. Jean Piaget's observations of his own children are good examples of how an intrinsic case study can contribute to the development of a psychological theory.

The three main case study types often used are intrinsic, instrumental, and collective. Intrinsic case studies are useful for learning about unique cases. Instrumental case studies help look at an individual to learn more about a broader issue. A collective case study can be useful for looking at several cases simultaneously.

The type of case study that psychology researchers use depends on the unique characteristics of the situation and the case itself.

There are a number of different sources and methods that researchers can use to gather information about an individual or group. Six major sources that have been identified by researchers are:

• Archival records : Census records, survey records, and name lists are examples of archival records.
• Direct observation : This strategy involves observing the subject, often in a natural setting . While an individual observer is sometimes used, it is more common to utilize a group of observers.
• Documents : Letters, newspaper articles, administrative records, etc., are the types of documents often used as sources.
• Interviews : Interviews are one of the most important methods for gathering information in case studies. An interview can involve structured survey questions or more open-ended questions.
• Participant observation : When the researcher serves as a participant in events and observes the actions and outcomes, it is called participant observation.
• Physical artifacts : Tools, objects, instruments, and other artifacts are often observed during a direct observation of the subject.

If you have been directed to write a case study for a psychology course, be sure to check with your instructor for any specific guidelines you need to follow. If you are writing your case study for a professional publication, check with the publisher for their specific guidelines for submitting a case study.

Here is a general outline of what should be included in a case study.

Section 1: A Case History

This section will have the following structure and content:

Background information : The first section of your paper will present your client's background. Include factors such as age, gender, work, health status, family mental health history, family and social relationships, drug and alcohol history, life difficulties, goals, and coping skills and weaknesses.

Description of the presenting problem : In the next section of your case study, you will describe the problem or symptoms that the client presented with.

Describe any physical, emotional, or sensory symptoms reported by the client. Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions related to the symptoms should also be noted. Any screening or diagnostic assessments that are used should also be described in detail and all scores reported.

Your diagnosis : Provide your diagnosis and give the appropriate Diagnostic and Statistical Manual code. Explain how you reached your diagnosis, how the client's symptoms fit the diagnostic criteria for the disorder(s), or any possible difficulties in reaching a diagnosis.

Section 2: Treatment Plan

This portion of the paper will address the chosen treatment for the condition. This might also include the theoretical basis for the chosen treatment or any other evidence that might exist to support why this approach was chosen.

• Cognitive behavioral approach : Explain how a cognitive behavioral therapist would approach treatment. Offer background information on cognitive behavioral therapy and describe the treatment sessions, client response, and outcome of this type of treatment. Make note of any difficulties or successes encountered by your client during treatment.
• Humanistic approach : Describe a humanistic approach that could be used to treat your client, such as client-centered therapy . Provide information on the type of treatment you chose, the client's reaction to the treatment, and the end result of this approach. Explain why the treatment was successful or unsuccessful.
• Psychoanalytic approach : Describe how a psychoanalytic therapist would view the client's problem. Provide some background on the psychoanalytic approach and cite relevant references. Explain how psychoanalytic therapy would be used to treat the client, how the client would respond to therapy, and the effectiveness of this treatment approach.
• Pharmacological approach : If treatment primarily involves the use of medications, explain which medications were used and why. Provide background on the effectiveness of these medications and how monotherapy may compare with an approach that combines medications with therapy or other treatments.

This section of a case study should also include information about the treatment goals, process, and outcomes.

When you are writing a case study, you should also include a section where you discuss the case study itself, including the strengths and limitiations of the study. You should note how the findings of your case study might support previous research. 

In your discussion section, you should also describe some of the implications of your case study. What ideas or findings might require further exploration? How might researchers go about exploring some of these questions in additional studies?

Need More Tips?

Here are a few additional pointers to keep in mind when formatting your case study:

• Never refer to the subject of your case study as "the client." Instead, use their name or a pseudonym.
• Read examples of case studies to gain an idea about the style and format.
• Remember to use APA format when citing references .

Crowe S, Cresswell K, Robertson A, Huby G, Avery A, Sheikh A. The case study approach .  BMC Med Res Methodol . 2011;11:100.

Crowe S, Cresswell K, Robertson A, Huby G, Avery A, Sheikh A. The case study approach . BMC Med Res Methodol . 2011 Jun 27;11:100. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-11-100

Gagnon, Yves-Chantal.  The Case Study as Research Method: A Practical Handbook . Canada, Chicago Review Press Incorporated DBA Independent Pub Group, 2010.

Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods . United States, SAGE Publications, 2017.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Personality Pedagogy

A compendium of resources for the teaching of personality psychology

Assignments, Exercises and Activities

Louis Sergent, 16, who is in his first year at high school, does his homework. Both he and his father are determined… – NARA – 541288 by Russell Lee – U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

10 Easy Activities Science Has Proven Will Make You Happier Grounded in research, these activities including practicing gratitude, controlling counter-factual thinking and others may be used to spark discussion or to introduce topics in stress, resilience, cognition, emotion, and positive psychology.

10 Fun Activities for Adjectives of Personality Originally designed for English teachers to help their students understand and describe nuances of character, this site offers 10 activities exploring adjectives helping students to describe the personality of themselves and others. Includes links to positive personality adjectives and negative personality adjectives. Good for an ice breaker or as a class exercise to introduce trait theory.

Activities Guide: Teaching Ethics in the Introduction to Psychology Course The Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology (OTRP) is pleased to announce this new resource for teachers by Ana Ruiz and Judith Warchal of Alvernia University (2013). This 23-page guide presents 17 activities related to ethics for each chapter in a typical Introduction to Psychology text as it integrates the APA Learning Goals and Outcomes for ethics into that course. For each chapter, the activity lists the student learning outcome, instructions for conducting the activity, materials needed, approximate time required, and a method of assessment. Activities most relevant to the personality class include APA Ethics code Jeopardy, Research Methods, Personality Testing, and Debating controversial topics.

Analytical Paper Marc W. Patry from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada submitted this creative assignment in which students basically have to select and digest a study related to personality psychology and to connect it to the assigned reading, to current events, and to something about yourself. Details and grading guidelines are provided.

Art and Personality Does the art you enjoy match your personality? Research by Stian Reimers in conjunction with the BBC suggests that there is a relationship between the kind of art people prefer (e.g. Impressionism, Abstract, Japanese, Islamic, Northern Renaissance, and Cubism) and one’s personality (emotional intelligence, the five-factor model, and sensation-seeking). Click here to read more about the findings, art, personality, or to participate in this online.

Assessing Assumptions About Gender This exercise by Amy Taylor, won Honorable Mention for the 2009 Social Psychology Network Action Teaching Award. In this activity, students read a dialog between a man and a women and report their impressions of the characters. Half the class have the genders of the characters switched. According to Taylor, the objectives of this activity are to: (1) illustrate how subtle gender biases can influence social perceptions, (2) help students recognize their own implicit assumptions about gender, and (3) explore the implications these biases may have for gender equality.

Attachment Theory: Teaching Students About the Science of Romantic Attachment Nathan DeWall and David Myers describe a series of activities to help students think about attachment and why our romantic partners may get under our skin. Includes background reading, self-assessment, an out-of-class activity, and discussion topics.

Barnum Effect Feedback Take this test to remind yourself why good personality tests should provide specific feedback…and why horoscopes are so much fun! See also this explanation of the Barnum Effect.

The Bechdel Test For Media Bias According to the Feminist Frequency website by media critic Anita Sarkeesian, The Bechdel Test is a simple way to gauge the active presence of female characters in Hollywood films and just how well rounded and complete those roles are. It was created by Allison Bechdel in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For in 1985 . The test is: (1) Does the film have at least two [named or otherwise central character] women in it, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about something besides a man? (runs 2 minutes, 3 seconds). You and your students can use this test to see how popular movies, especially those winning Oscars or other top awards, fares. Click here for a discussion of similar tests for other types of bias in the media.

Big Five, Happiness: Beyond the Purchase From the website We know that the effects of our spending choices often last beyond the place or moment of a purchase. Sometimes those effects are beneficial, leading to enjoyment, happy memories, or feelings of belongingness. At other times those effects may be financially or emotionally detrimental. We developed Beyond The Purchase to explore happiness and the quality of life, and the outcomes of different purchasing and money-management choices, as well as the motivations behind them. Psychologist Ryan Howell and colleagues created this site to help people make more informed choices. The site features personality tests, research findings, and a special section for incorporating their ideas into your classroom including a demonstration and slides on the Big Five personality traits and teaching central tendency using the Big Five. Follow the BtP in your classroom link.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Worksheets Free downloadable cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) worksheets, formulations, and self-help resources including blank formulations, thought records, cognitive restructuring worksheets, diaries/data gathering sheets, mechanisms, information sheets, techniques/procedures, useful tools, forgiveness tools, and formulations for specific disorders, all in PDF format.

Coming Out Exercise Barry A. Schreier of Purdue University developed this exercise to assist individuals with the experience of loss that is often associated with Coming Out. Loss can come in many ways from the loss of a job, the loss of friends and family members, the loss of autonomy, loss of affiliation with others, and so on. This exercise is used to access the vital emotional components of participants’ belief and attitude systems in the efforts of creating greater inclusivity in attitude and belief for people who are Gay, Lesbian, or Bisexual.

Conditioning at Mickey D’s “What do parents do, at a fast food restaurant, to encourage desirable behaviors and discourage undesirable behaviors? Are the principles of operant conditioning being used?” Check out Raymond Rogoway’s clever assignment for understanding and applying principles of conditioning.

Culture: Barnga This game teaches participants about inter-cultural awareness: In Barnga, participants experience the shock of realizing that despite many similarities, people of differing cultures perceive things differently or play by different rules. Players learn that they must understand and reconcile these differences if they want to function effectively in a cross-cultural group. Essentially, the game induces feelings of culture shock in the limited (and safe) environment of a classroom. Opens in PDF. Also available here.

Cultural Identity: The Cultural Circles Exercise Phani Radhakrishnan, University of Toronto, designed the Cultural Circles Exercise to help students in her Diversity in the Workplace class become more aware of cultural identity. Students discuss their own heritage and cultural background one-on-one with others in the class and identify sources of pride in their own culture.

Debriefed Stories: How to Conduct a Debriefing Discussion According to trainer and games guru Sivasailam Thiagi Thiagarajan People don’t learn from experience. They learn from reflecting on their experience. In this interactive story, he presents six questions for debriefing which facilitators can use to help participants reflect and learn from their experience. Very useful for teachers, trainers, facilitators, group leaders, and others who like to use experiential learning in their work. From the Thiagi Gameletter , October 2014.

Defense Mechanisms Randall E. Osborne, Indiana University East, first presented these two interactive exercises for the personality psychology course at the 9th Annual Conference on Undergraduate Teaching of Psychology: Ideas and Innovations, in 1995. In the second exercise, What’s my Defense Mechanism?, students must guess the defense mechanism depicted in a brief skit presented by their classmates. (In the first exercise, the Personality Collage, students and someone who knows them well each create a collage of the student’s personality. Students compare and contrast the two collages by answering various questions and come to understand the differences between self-view and other’s view of themselves.) Opens in PDF format.

Defense Mechanisms John Suler, Rider University, maintains the excellent Teaching Clinical Psychology website. For learning about defense mechanisms, he offers a handout [which] I give to students that we use to discuss some of the typical defense mechanisms. After the discussion, I break the students down into small groups so that can develop role plays that demonstrate these defenses. Instructions for these role plays are described at the end of the handout.

Extroversion and Introversion: The Eysenck Lemon Juice Experiment The BBC website provides instructions and a simple way to replicate this classic experiment.

Emotions: Spot the Fake Smile Can you tell which smiles are genuine and which are fake? Take this 10-minute test, based on the research of Paul Ekman, in which you watch brief video clips of 20 people smiling.

Erikson’s 8 Stages of Development Visit this page to see classroom activities submitted by high school and college teachers. Submit your own activities for inclusion here — or elsewhere on Personality Pedagogy — to [email protected].

Erikson’s Stages of Development Ages in Stages: An Exploration of the Life Cycle based on Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages of Human Development. Margaret Krebs-Carter designed this activity for High School English or Developmental Psychology classes and gives this description: How does age make a difference in the way we act/think/feel? Erik Erikson, the well-known teacher and psychiatrist who popularized the term “identity crisis” claims that we are greatly affected by the developmental changes that we undergo as we mature. This curriculum unit pursues the question of age differences by focusing on Erik Erikson’s theory of human development—the eight stages. Included in this unit are: 1) brief explanations of the eight stages; 2) recommended readings—short stories, plays, and novels—that illustrate the emotional crises that occur during these eight stages; 3) activities to introduce the new concepts; 4) suggestions of theoretical material for students to read; 5) a description of how to structure the classroom in order to teach a class in which group participation is encouraged.

Erikson’s Stages of Development: The Soundtrack of Your Life Describes an activity where students identify eight major events in their lives (e.g., deaths, first car, entering high school, etc.) and find songs (music and lyrics) to correspond to these events, designing an imaginary soundtrack of their lives. Students write about the experience, submit their compilations, and/or present a song to the class with an explanation of its import. Originally designed to be a writing assignment, with some additional guidance this activity can be used to illustrate narrative psychology, the self, Erikson’s stages, and other theories of personality psychology.

Necker’s cube by Me (Stevo-88) – Own work – my representation of a well known optical illusion. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Extroversion and Introversion: The Necker Cube Experiment This brief on-line experiment, devised by the Open University in conjunction with the BBC was developed by Dr Peter Naish. Their hypothesis is that because of their varying response to stimulation, extroverts and introverts will perceive a Necker cube differently.

The Facebook Experiment: Reaction From Psychologists According to former psychology professor Michael Britt in his podcast The Psych Files : You’ve probably heard about the controversy over the Facebook manipulation of user’s News Feeds and the (possible) effect this had on user’s emotions. In the latest episode of The Psych Files I summarize the study and my conclusions about it. Also included on the website is a (large) concept map that also summarizes the study, links to references and Facebook’s official response. Also included in the map and the episode: suggestions for students regarding how a proper informed consent form might have been written and presented to students. Episode 22, July 1, 2014. Runs 33 minutes and 16 seconds.

Five Factor Model James W. Pennebaker maintains this page of a dozen or so online research projects. Most of them involve taking a brief survey or by completing short exercises. Feedback and insight into one’s personality is provided. Topics include TAT, Big Five questionnaire, perceptual style, spirituality, depression and more.

Five Factor Model: Research Tool Demonstrates How Your Facebook Likes Reveal Your Personality Eric Ravenscraft, writing for LifeHacker , discusses a tool developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge to analyze your Facebook like to reveal what people can learn about you. Click here to try it out for yourself.

Five Factor model and e-perceptions The You Just Get Me website asks visitors Do you get people, even if you just met them? Do the people in your life truly get you? Using the Five-Factor model, respondents answer 43 questions about their personality and try to guess the personality of other visitors. Based on the research of Vazire & Gosling (2004).

Freud, Sigmund: That’s My Theory! Sigmund Freud and two other personality psychologists are guests on this online game show developed by PBS. Can you discover the who the real Sigmund Freud is though the answers he gives? Can you guess who the other two guests are?

Freud, Sigmund: Wrestling with Sigmund Freud ‘Ya gotta see it to believe it.

Freud: Online Activities: Dream analysis, Word Association, Ink Blot Generator The National Museum of Science and Industry , in the UK, sponsors this amazing website on Making the Modern World , which includes learning modules on all sorts of topics. One in particular, on Measuring the Unmeasurable , aims to take the user through various aspects of psychiatry and the study of mental illness. It looks at the treatment, diagnosis and methods used in psychiatry as well as the investigation of mental illness from a historical and socio-cultural perspective. This module includes 4 pages on Sigmund Freud: Freud and Psychoanalysis, Freud’s concept of the Personality, Freud’s theory of psychosexual development, and Freudian Techniques of psychoanalysis. The module on Psychoanalysis includes online activities on dream analysis, the Word Association Test, and Ink Blot Generator.

Freudian Dream Analysis Worksheet by Chris VerWys , Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute See also the Dream Analysis Survey Results .

Gender Stereotypes: According to Jim . These days, I find that my students are a little reticent to talk about gender stereotypes, especially since my classes are often very much skewed in one direction. To help the discussion along, I like to show the episode Jim Almighty from the ABC television show According to Jim , staring Jim Belushi. In this episode Jim thinks that he can design women better than the creator did. In the course of the show, many gender stereotypes are depicted and reinforced (and some are even abandoned). I instruct my students to keep track and write down all of the stereotypes for men and for women that are mentioned in the show. I put them on the blackboard and classify them into physical, sexual, personality, social, and emotional and discuss if they are accurate, inaccurate, or an exaggeration of a true difference. I may even have the class vote on what they think the distributions look like (e.g. normal curves with a lot of overlap, a little overlap or something in between). This is a good way to set up a discussion of gender similarities and differences in personality using Hyde’s work on meta-analysis. Note that the episode, while a family situation comedy which originally aired during prime time, does make scatological and sexual references and features the actor Lee Majors playing The Almighty (stereotyped as a Texan). I offer students who think they may be offended by the set-up an alternative activity, although nobody has taken this option. In discussions with the class, even religious students find the depiction of The Almighty funny and not at all offensive, but you should review this episode before showing your class in case your students are different from mine. This episode originally aired in January of 2008, season 7 episode 1, ( S07E01 ) and is available on You Tube here (21:19). Note: If the video has been removed from You Tube, try searching for it. If you are still unable to find it, it is available for streaming from Amazon.com for $1.99 if you have an Amazon Prime Account.

Genetically Engineer Your Own Child This somewhat creepy, satirical website allows visitors to create a genetically engineered child by selecting various characteristics such as gender, eye color, and sexual orientation. Once you find out the genetic code of your offspring, you can choose to have certain characteristics and disorders altered, if you are willing to spend the money. In the process, the visitor is forced to think about the value society places on certain attributes (e.g. IQ, musical ability, sexual orientation, AIDS, ADHD and others) and the ethicality of genetic engineering. The site was created as a piece of performance art and is not a real institution despite its authentic look and feel.

Genetics: Do Your Hands Have Family Traits? Check out these two projects from Science Buddies : In these hands-on genetics projects and activities, students investigate a family pedigree to see if they can determine whether traits are dominant or recessive. Do you and some (or all) of your family members share certain physical traits? Is a widow’s peak passed down from generation to generation? Find out!

Genetics: Six Creative Ways to Teach Genetics A selection of creative ways to help students of all ages and abilities understand genes and genetic disorders. From The Guardian , September 7, 2015.

Genetics: Your Family Health History: A DNA Day Activity This PDF describes how to create a family tree or pedigree documenting medical conditions which may run in families, but you can easily adapt the activity to focus on personality traits.

Genetics and Gender Differences in Ideal Mate Selection. Scott Bates, Utah State University, does the following exercise to introduce the topic of Genetics to his students: On the second day of class, I collect data via a survey (these data provide good lecture material throughout the course). One of the questions that I ask is this: List the top three characteristics of an IDEAL MATE (a person with whom you would like to spend the rest of your life). Use adjectives. If you’ve already married (or found) your ideal mate, then list the three most important characteristics that attracted you to him/her. I then have a TA code the responses into categories (e.g., physical appearance, social status, etc). Then, when I get to the topic of genes/environment, or evolution, I introduce human mate-selection and present material on evolutionary/genetic influences. The compelling part is that I present students’ data, by category, by sex. Males have always listed physical characteristics (e.g., pretty, hot, nice looking) more often than women. Women have always listed loyalty (e.g., faithful, trustworthy) and social status (e.g., ambitious, good job prospects) more often than men. (from the PSYTEACH discussion list, January 22, 2009).

Happiness The October issue of the Thiagi Gameletter ( Seriously fun activities for trainers, facilitators, performance consultants, and managers , see their homepage here ) describes an activity (which they call a jolt ) to demonstrate how our current emotions are influenced by our thoughts about the past.

Here’s a Quick Way to Figure Out What You Should Do With Your Life, Based on Your Personality Check out this colorful flow chart, based on the work of John Holland, which asks a series of questions to help you find your ideal career. From The Muse , July 13, 2015.

Hetereosexist Bias Lesson Plan and Questionnaire The Advocates for Youth website provides this lesson plan To give straight people an opportunity to experience the types of questions that are often asked of gay, lesbian, and/or bisexual people . Students answer a questionnaire and discuss the experience in small groups. Takes about 40 minutes. Includes questions for discussion.

Heterosexual Privilege The Student Counseling Center at Texas Tech University features a number of activities, handouts and other resources on their website. In this activity, students answer 32 questions that illustrate heterosexual privilege in ways straight people do not have to think about. For example, questions range from I can, if I wish, legally marry my life partner to My sexual orientation is represented in the media and I don’t feel excluded.

Homosexuality: A Values Clarification Exercise John Suler, Rider University, maintains the excellent Teaching Clinical Psychology website. To make students aware of their preconceptions and subtle attitudes towards homosexuality, he puts 10 statements on the board and students discuss the statements in a group. He then tallies the group votes and leads the class in a discussion of their own preconceptions, along with theory and research evidence.

The Grinch (That Stole Christmas) by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia

How the Grinch Stole Psychology Class After watching the 25 minute video of the classic Christmas story by Dr. Seuss, students analyze the Grinch’s personality and change of heart using theories and terms from personality including Freud, Adler, Horney, Maslow, and Rogers. A great end-of-the-semester review.

Ice Breakers and Team Builders Find tons of activities for groups for icebreaking, team building, name games, trust-building, self-awareness, multicultural awareness, and fun.

Idiogrid: Developing and managing self-report data James W. Grice of Oklahoma State University developed software for his idiographic research which he is currently offering for free to instructors and researchers. From the website: Idiogrid is software for administering, managing, and analyzing different types of self-report data [e.g. attitude scales, personality questionnaires, trait profiles, values test]. It was originally designed around George Kelly’s repertory grid technique but has been developed to include person-centered and questionnaire methodologies employed by researchers from a wide variety of domains (e.g., personality psychologists, self-concept researchers, clinical psychologists, market researchers, and sociologists). The site provides extensive support and resources for using the software for clinical, organizational and classroom demonstrations and assignments.

Intelligence Fellows of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute developed these 12 lesson plans on Human Intelligence: Theories and Developmental Origins .

I Scream, You Scream In this exercise students learn about the importance of validity and reliability by deconstructing the Ice Cream Personality Test . Miserandino, M. (2006). I Scream, You Scream: Teaching Validity and Reliability Via the Ice Cream Personality Test. Teaching Psychology. 33(4) , 265-68. Opens in PDF.

Jung: The Shadow Exercise As part of the Teaching Clinical Psychology webpage, John Suler, Rider University, includes this exercise on the shadow. Students reflect on a person they don’t like very much and consider if the traits they dislike in another reflects traits they don’t like in themselves.

Life Story When discussing intake interviews and psychotherapy, John Suler, Rider University, point[s] out that clients engage in a process of exploring their life story, usually at first by describing the most important “facts” about themselves. In this exercise, described on his Teaching Clinical Psychology website, students write down four important facts about themselves and one lie. Others in the class read each list and the class discusses patterns which they see.

Mask-Making Activity The Archdiocese of St.Louis sponsors special programs to reach out to teens. On their REAP website they describe a mask-making activity designed to help teens: recognize the masks he/she might wear, recognize the masks that others put upon him/her [and] view other students with more compassion in regards to the masks they wear.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, including newer 7- and 8- stage models. Also includes links to PDF and MSWORD illustrations of the hierarchies.

• Hierarchy of Needs Original 5 stage model in PDF format.
• Hierarchy of Needs Modified 7-stage model from the 1970s in PDF format.
• Hierarchy of Needs Modified 8-stage model from the 1990s in PDF format.
• Self-test Quick self-test based on the 5-stage model of the hierarchy of needs in PDF format.
• Self-test Quick self-test based on the modified 8-stage model of the hierarchy of needs in PDF format.

Maslow, Abraham: That’s My Theory! Sigmund Freud and two other personality psychologists — Skinner and Maslow — are guests on this online game show developed by PBS. Learn about all three theorists through the answers they give.

Mind Habits According to the website: ‘ MindHabits is based on scientifically tested and demonstrated tools that help reduce stress and boost confidence of players using principles from the new science of social intelligence. Research demonstrated benefits from playing just five minutes each day. Give it a try for free and see if it works for you!’ Trial version is free.

Multicultural Activities Group activities to make people aware of the impact of the culture on themselves and others.

Participate in Online Research The Social Psychology Network , maintained by Scott Plous, Wesleyan University, lists over 150 web-based experiments, surveys, and other social psychological studies. Click on the section labels Personality and Individual differences to find links to studies on various topics such as the Five Factor Model, birth season, motivation, anxiety and more.

Perceptual Style James W. Pennebaker maintains this page of a dozen or so online research projects. Most of them involve taking a brief survey or by completing short exercises. Feedback and insight into one’s personality is provided. Topics include TAT, Big Five questionnaire, perceptual style, spirituality, depression and more.

Licensed under the Creative Commons

Personality Collage Randall E. Osborne, Indiana University East, first presented these two interactive exercises for the personality psychology course at the 9th Annual Conference on Undergraduate Teaching of Psychology: Ideas and Innovations, in 1995. In the Personality Collage students and someone who knows them well each create a collage of the student’s personality. Students compare and contrast the two collages by answering various questions and come to understand the differences between self-view and other’s view of themselves. (In the second exercise students must guess the defense mechanism depicted in a brief skit presented by their classmates.) Opens in PDF format.

Positive Psychology: 7-day unit plan for high school psychology Amy C. Fineburg, Homewood High School, Birmingham, Alabama, created this document for Teaching of Psychology in the Secondary Schools. Includes critical thinking activities (daily mood, satisfaction with life scale, creating flow experiences, measuring optimism, the hope scale and much more) interspersed with lesson plans for the high school psychology course.

Positive Psychology: Five -Ful Envelopes In this activity, by Barbara Frederickson, participants explore the positive emotions of hopeful, joyful, peaceful, playful, and thankful, and brainstorm ways of increasing the frequency and intensity of these positive emotions in their lives. From the January 2010 issue of the Thiagi Gameletter ( Seriously fun activities for trainers, facilitators, performance consultants, and managers , see their website here ).

Positive Reinforcement: A Self-Instructional Exercise Athabasca University devised this on-line exercise to teach students the concept of positive reinforcement and also to provide an idea of the kind of self-instructional exercises used in many Athabasca University course packages

The Religious Experience: East, West, Everywhere John Suler, Rider University, maintains the excellent Teaching Clinical Psychology website. He suggests the following exercise: Many psychologists, philosophers, and theologians talk about how some people have an intense, sudden, usually unexpected experience of a “higher reality” or “higher power” beyond what we normally experience. Some say it is the experience of “God.” Here are how William James (one of the greatest American psychologists) and D.T. Suzuki (one of the greatest Japanese Zen philosophers) described religious experiences in their cultures. Are there any similarities between east and west?

The Self: The Soundtrack of Your Life Describes an activity where students identify eight major events in their lives (e.g., deaths, first car, entering high school, etc.) and find songs (music and lyrics) to correspond to these events, designing an imaginary soundtrack of their lives. Students write about the experience, submit their compilations, and/or present a song to the class with an explanation of its import. Originally designed to be a writing assignment, with some additional guidance this activity can be used to illustrate narrative psychology, the self, Erikson’s stages, and other theories of personality psychology.

Self-Esteem Games Mark Baldwin and his colleagues at McGill University have developed games to help people increase their self-esteem based on psychological research. Visit this site to play one of three self-esteem games, to participate in their online research or to learn more about what they do.

Sex and the Brain From the BBC sponsored website: Find out more about “brain sex” differences by taking the Sex ID test, a series of visual challenges and questions used by psychologists in the BBC One television series Secrets of the Sexes . Get a brain sex profile and find out if you think like a man or a woman, see if you can gaze into someone’s eyes and know what they’re thinking, find out why scientists are interested in the length of your fingers, see how your results relate to theories about brain sex.

Sexual Orientation: The Complexity of Sexual Orientation The Understanding Prejudice website has a special section on college classroom activities. In this activity, students fill out a Sexual Orientation Identification sheet (on the website) which describes the behaviors and attractions of various hypothetical people. Students must decide if the person described is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or straight. The items are designed to provoke differences of opinion to spark a discussion as to what defines sexual orientation: behavior, desire, self-identification, or some combination of all three. Includes discussion questions.

Sexual Trichotomy Model An explanation of the trichotomy of sexual identity, sexual behavior, and sexual orientation. Students discuss how this trichtomy might apply to 6 hypothetical people and in the process discover how sexuality is fluid and how a person’s identity, orientation and behavior can change throughout life.

Skinner, B.F.: That’s My Theory! Sigmund Freud and two other personality psychologists — Skinner and Maslow — are guests on this online game show developed by PBS. Learn about all three theorists through the answers they give.

Teaching Students About How Simple, Positive Activities Can Increase Well-Being Nathan DeWall and David G. Myers offer their advice and guidance about teaching an area of research recently highlighted in Current Directions of Psychological Science . In this column for the May/June 2013 APS Observer they discuss numerous classroom activities to illustrate the effect—how simple activities can increase well-being—and spark discussion.

Teaching Students About the Sunny Side of Stress Nathan DeWall and David G. Myers offer their advice and guidance about teaching an area of research recently highlighted in Current Directions of Psychological Science . In this column for the May/June 2013 APS Observer they discuss how people can use arousal reappraisal to lessen the experience of stress in both mind and body.

Thematic Apperception Test James W. Pennebaker maintains this page of a dozen or so online research projects. Most of them involve taking a brief survey or by completing short exercises. Feedback and insight into one’s personality is provided. Topics include TAT, Big Five questionnaire, perceptual style, spirituality, depression and more.

Theorists Table See how the work of 32 major personality theorists — from Adler to Zuckerman with Freud, Maslow, McAdams , and Skinner in between — relates to the Five Factor Model. Includes references and links.

The Trait Paper Assignment: Fostering Critical Thinking in Personality Psychology . (Also available here). Hittner, J. B. (1999). Fostering critical thinking in personalty psychology. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 26, 92-97. From the abstract: A personality trait-based term paper assignment that is appropriate for use in personality psychology courses and that is designed to foster critical thinking skills is introduced. The extent to which the trait questions correspond to generic critical thinking questions is considered, the specific thinking skills induced by each trait question are discussed, and potential limitations of the assignment are noted. Preliminary data are also presented which suggest that the trait-based term paper assignment stimulates critical thinking and enhances knowledge about personality traits. It is hoped that the ideas presented and issues discussed in the present article will encourage academic psychologists from all subdisciplines to develop writing assignments that foster critical thinking skills. This assignment is not rooted in a particular model of traits and so is adaptable to any model.

Validity and Reliability Mark Mitchell and Janina Jolley for the Research Design Explained website provide these materials for students to administer a pencil-and-paper version of the Ice Cream Personality Test to a friend. Based on Miserandino, M. (2006). I scream, you scream: Teaching validity and reliability via the ice cream personality test. Teaching of Psychology, 33 , 265-268.

Want to Be Happier Right Now? The Think Positive! Experiment Reflecting on the 3 best events over the course of a week, as opposed to the three worst, colors our overall judgement of how the week was.

What’s In A Name? First Day of Class Ice Breaker What’s in a name? John Suler, Rider University, suggests this ice breaker in his Teaching Clinical Psychology website. Students state their name, and explain how they got their name. This is an especially powerful exercise for small classes or for classes where students work closely with each other over the course of a semester.

Who Am I? – Famous Psychologists Quiz Test your knowledge of important figures in psychology with this quiz. The expert level has 13 questions, which increase in difficultly. Ten of the questions are about personality psychologists including: Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Karen Horney and Erik Erickson.

Why? A Happiness Activity The September (2008) issue of the Thiagi Gameletter ( Seriously fun activities for trainers, facilitators, performance consultants, and managers , see http://www.thiagi.com/ ) describes a series of Happiness Activities as part of their Tool Kit to demonstrate how most of our current goals when reduced to their most fundamental form — by repeatedly asking the question Why? have happiness at its core.

Why Self-Control and Grit Matter —- And Why It Pays to Know the Difference C. Nathan DeWall , writing for the Teaching Current Directions in Psychological Science column in the APS Observer , presents this five-minute activity on the Duckworth and Gross (2014) study of Self-Control and Grit.

Offender Profiling In Psychology

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

When police have very little evidence to go on, they will sometimes enlist the help of a forensic psychologist. The forensic psychologist will use prior knowledge and evidence gathered from the scene to build an offender profile.

Offender profiling is an investigative tool that aid the identification, apprehension and conviction of an unknown offender by providing the police with a description of the likely social (employment, marital status) and mental characteristics (level of education, motivation) of the offender.

It also provides predictions of who the offender is likely to attack next, where and when and possible interview strategies to elicit information about the crimes committed and confession of guilt.

Offender profiles are only as good as the information provided to the profiler. They should be regarded as one tool amongst many to be used by the police.

There are two approaches:

• The top-down American approach: From the data gathered at the crime scene, the investigators can identify characteristics of the offender e.g. lifestyle or personality characteristics. From this the offender is categorized as either an organized or a disorganized offender. It is a top-down approach because it attempts to fit crime details under pre-existing categories (typologies).
• The bottom-up British approach or investigative psychology: Starts with small details and creates the big picture. No initial assumptions are made about the offender and the approach relies heavily on computer databases. It can be the little details that are often overlooked that can be crucial to the success of a case.

Top Down – The FBI Approach

The phrase top-down refers to an approach, which starts with the big picture and then fills in the details. The Top Down of FBI approach relies on previous experiences of crimes.

This approach was pioneered in the US with the work of Ressler, Burgess and Douglas in the 1970s from the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit.

They interviewed 36 sexually motivated serial killers including Ted Bundy, the questions used related to factors such as early warning signs and possible triggers.

From the data obtained by the interviews, the data gathered at the crime scenes and examination of the crime itself, they identified typologies. Typologies are categories, groups of offenders displaying different clusters of behaviors and attitudes.

In 1980 Hazelwood and Douglas published their account of the ‘lust murderer’, they advanced a theory that lust murderers are mainly catergorised by two types: – Organised and disorganised.

Organized Offenders

An organized offender leads an ordered life and kills after some sort of critical life event. Their actions are premeditated and planned, they are likely to bring weapons and restraints to the scene. They are likely to be of average to high intelligence and employed.

• Organized offenders : They show signs of having planned their crime in advance
• Personal characteristics : socially adequate, sexually competent, charming, geographically/ occupationally mobile, high IQ, lives with partner.
• Post-offense behavior : returns to the crime scene, volunteers information.
• Interview techniques : use direct strategies

Disorganized Offenders

A disorganized offender is more likely to have committed the crime in a moment of passion. There will be no evidence of premeditation and they are more likely to leave evidence such as blood, semen, murder weapon etc. behind. This type of offender is thought to be less socially competent and more likely to be unemployed.

• Disorganized offenders : They show little sign of planning.
• Personal characteristics : socially inadequate, sexually incompetent, lives and works near crime scene, low IQ, lives alone.
• Post-offense behavior : returns to crime scene to relive event, keep diary/ news cutting of events.
• Interview techniques : empathise with offender, introduce evidence indirectly

Constructing a profile using the top-down approach

To generate a profile of the offender, the profiler

• Review the evidence gathered from the crime scene and other material evidence
• The crime scene is classified as organized or disorganized
• The crime is reconstructed – based on the evidence gathered hypotheses are made about what has occurred in terms of order of events, behavior of the offender and of the victim.

These elements are then compared to the typographies and a profile is generated.

Critical Evaluation

Top-down profiling is reductionist as the classification system (organized/disorganized) is too simple. Offenders are not simply either disorganized or organized. It may be that there are both organized and disorganized features to all their crimes.

An offender may start off being disorganized and become more organized as they develop their modus operandi.

Top Down typology can only be applied to sexually motivated serial killers; because of the limitations of the original sample that they interviewed: – sexually motivated serial killers!).

This approach assumes that the criminal behavior will reflect the characteristics of the offender and will remain stable over time and across offenses; however criminals change over their criminal careers. They might change their modus operandi (the way they operate) as they become more forensically aware for example to avoid detection.

However, research shows that more fundamental aspects of the crimes remain fairly stable over time because they are linked to motivation and needs, this is what Canter called “central narrative themes”.

This theory is deterministic as it assumes that the offender’s behavior is shaped by stable personality traits but Alison et al. (2002) argues that the offender’s behavior is the result of complex interaction of many factors such as context and interaction with the victim so is not stable and predictable.

Furthermore, Alison et al. (2003) also questions the assumptions that similar types of offenders will commit crime in a similar way. Mokros and Alison (2002) compared criminal behavior, background and criminal history of 100 British male rapists. They found that rapists who offended in similar ways did not share any of these characteristics.

The data on which the approach is based is unreliable as it was gained from the interview of offenders who are very manipulative; this raises questions about the validity of the data obtained.

However, the interviewers also had a very thorough briefing of the facts which helped them detect deception. Furthermore, the data was obtained from American men this questions the generalisability of the findings and the theory based on this data to other cultures and to women.

The typologies organized v.s disorganized offenders has been challenged by Canter (2004) who analyzed the data of 100 murders in the US using “smaller space analysis”. He found that there was support for organized typology but no support for the disorganized typology. This undermines the classification system.

According to Holmes (1998) the top-down approach has contributed to arrest in only 17% of the cases in which it was used. This is still a valuable contribution as it is used in very serious cases where lives are at risk.

Bottom Up – The British Approach

This approach was pioneered by psychologists David Canter and Paul Britton working with the police. Canter (1990) is the UK’s foremost profiling expert; his bottom-up approach looks for consistencies in offenders’ behavior during the crime.

Canter’s most famous case is that of the ‘Railway Rapist’ John Duffy. John Duffy carried out 24 sexual attacks and 3 murders of women near railway stations in North London in the 1980s.

David Canter analyzed the geographical details and the evidence and drew up a surprisingly accurate profile. However, it should be noted that the profile didn’t directly lead to John Duffy’s arrest.

The bottom-up approach is data-driven; the profile is constructed based on the association between particular characteristics of the offense and of the offender. It started with an individual analysis of individual crimes and a series of crimes.

Canter then started to statistically analyze solved crime and identified clusters of events and behaviors that occur together (smallest place analysis). From this analysis, he derived typologies.

A crucial concept of this approach is interpersonal coherence , the way an offender behaves while committing a crime, e.g. the way they interact with the victim, reflects the way they behave and interact in their everyday life.

A second key concept of Canter’s theory is spatial consistency . He assumes that offenders operate in areas that they know well. Canter and Larkin (1993) proposed two categories of offenders:

• Marauders : they commit their crimes close to where they live and feel secure.
• Commuters : they commit their crimes away from where they usually live and over large areas.

This has been the base of geographical profiling. Geographical Profiling is used to make inferences about where an offender is likely to live. This is also known as crime mapping.

Circle Theory of Environmental Range

Canter and Larkin (1993) proposed the circle theory of environmental range. This is based on the study of many cases which showed that if a circle is drawn that encompasses all linked crimes, the offender will be based somewhere within the circle.

Rossmo (2000) suggests that in general criminals offend close to their homes (or other base e.g. workplace) and the number of offenses drops off with increasing distance from the base. This is supported by Godwin and Canter (1997) found that 85 % of the offenders they studied lived inside the circle encompassing their offenses.

It is more difficult to geographically profile commuters, although when investigators were looking at the disappearance and murder of 4 young girls from different and seemingly unrelated areas of Britain in the 1980s, the dumping of the bodies in laybys next to major A roads (including Twycross, just up the road) led to a breakthrough.

It was realized that his likely occupation was delivery driver, giving him access to a van/lorry for easy transportation and led to him ‘commuting’ all over the country, traveling along A roads.

Geographical profiling has support; Godwin and Canter (1997) found that 85 % of the offenders they studied lived inside the circle encompassing their offenses. However, Koscis and Irwin found that only 50% of burglars lived in the circle defined by their offenses.

Snook et al. (2005) examined the offense locations of 53 serial murderers in Germany and found that in 63% of cases the killer lived within 6 miles of where the bodies were found.

This approach can provide useful information to aid the police in narrowing their search. However, it requires accurate data on the offenses committed in a particular area and this might be a problem with the under-reporting of crimes by the public, the recording of crimes by the police could also limit the effectiveness of this method.

Unlike the top-down approach, investigative psychology can be applied to a wide range of offenses. It has been used in burglary and car crime.

Investigative psychology is more scientific than the top-down approach as it is based on psychological theories and research. However, like the top-down approach, investigative psychology is based on research carried out in Western societies so it might not apply to other cultures without modifications.

Psychological profiles based on this approach have enabled the police to catch offenders in a number of high-profile cases, including that of John Duffy. Such cases have attracted a high degree of media attention however there has also been spectacular failures such as Rachel Nickel’s killer.

Copson (1995) carried out a survey of detectives who had worked with offender profiling found that the advice given in the profile only helped to catch the offender in 3% of the cases. However, it was found to be useful in 83% of the cases where it had been used but it only offered direct help in solving the crime in 14 percent of the cases.

One of the problems seems to come from a lack of consistency in the British approach. There are a number of individuals in the UK providing psychological profiles for the police with different backgrounds in psychology and psychiatry, each using their own approach.

Alison, L., Bennell, C., Mokros, A., & Ormerod, D. (2002). The personality paradox in offender profiling: A theoretical review of the processes involved in deriving background characteristics from crime scene actions. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 8 (1), 115.

Alison, L., Smith, M. D., Eastman, O., & Rainbow, L. (2003). Toulmin’s philosophy of argument and its relevance to offender profiling. Psychology, Crime & Law, 9 (2), 173-183.

Canter, D. (2004). Offender profiling and investigative psychology .

Canter, D. V., Alison, L. J., Alison, E., & Wentink, N. (2004). The organized/disorganized typology of serial murder: Myth or model? . Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 10 (3), 293.

Canter, D., & Larkin, P. (1993). The environmental range of serial rapists . Journal of environmental psychology, 13 (1), 63-69.

Copson, G., Badcock, R., Boon, J., & Britton, P. (1997). Articulating a systematic approach to clinical crime profiling.

Godwin, M., & Canter, D. (1997). Encounter and death: The spatial behavior of US serial killers . Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management .

Hazelwood and Douglas (1980) – ‘ The Lust Murderer ’. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin 49 (4), 18-22.

Holmes, R. M., & Holmes, S. T. (1998). Serial murder. Sage Publications, Inc.

Ressler, R. K., Douglas, J. E., Groth, A. N., & Burgess, A. W. (1980). Offender profiles: A multidisciplinary approach. FBI law enforcement bulletin, 49 (9), 16-20.

Kocsis, R. N., Hayes, A. F., & Irwin, H. J. (2002). Investigative experience and accuracy in psychological profiling of a violent crime. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 17 (8), 811-823.

Mokros, A., & Alison, L. J. (2002). Is offender profiling possible? Testing the predicted homology of crime scene actions and background characteristics in a sample of rapists. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 7 (1), 25-43.

Snook, B., Zito, M., Bennell, C., & Taylor, P. J. (2005). On the complexity and accuracy of geographic profiling strategies . Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 21 (1), 1-26.

Further Reading

• Questioning the validity of criminal profiling: an evidence-based approach Offender profiling and investigative psychology
• Canter, D., & Heritage, R. (1990). A multivariate model of sexual offence behavior: Developments in ‘offender profiling”. I. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, 1(2), 185-212.
• The Use of Offender Profiling Evidence in Criminal

• Teaching Tips

Portfolios in Psychology Classes

In this Teaching Tips article, our goal is to share our experience using portfolios in psychology courses and dispel some of the “myths” we encountered along the way. Our hope is that our experience can help others considering the use of portfolios who may be hesitant to implement them due to concerns such as: They are a haphazard collection of student work, are too time-intensive to incorporate into a large course, are independent and non-collaborative projects, or are technologically impossible to implement. The article that follows describes our collective experience implementing portfolios in a course taught by one of the authors (MB). ~Melissa, Linda, and Sue

“By doing this portfolio, I want to continue to learn more about {the topic}, even after the class is over.” Student comment, Fall 2009

What instructor wouldn’t like to see a comment like the one above at the end of the semester?  As an instructor of a sophomore-level Introduction to Neuroscience survey course several semesters ago, I found this comment especially rewarding. That semester, I  decided to implement portfolios for the first time in the course, a decision that I made after much deliberation. Along the way, I encountered a number of portfolio “myths” that could have stopped me in my tracks. Looking back, I’m glad that I did not believe the myths, and that my students and I were able to learn and grow from that first portfolio experience. Now, after using portfolios in the course for nearly three years, I would like to share what I have learned, and help to both dispel some of the more prevalent myths and offer some practical examples and suggestions for other instructors considering a portfolio project for their classes.

Why consider a portfolio project in the first place? In reflecting on my experiences in the survey class, I found myself thinking about some of my conversations with students in the course. Some students were passionate about topics in psychology that related to our course but that were not going to be covered that semester. As I thought more about these students, I realized that all of their topics could not be covered in the course and was disappointed  that these innate interests could not be cultivated and engaged. I wanted a way to allow students to explore a topic of their choice, particularly something they personally connected with or had an interest in as part of the survey course. I decided to try a portfolio project to allow students to pursue these topics in a more focused way than our in-class lectures and activities allowed.

In my course, students developed a working “personal interest” portfolio based on written assignments completed throughout the semester. There was an assignment approximately every two weeks, which involved researching causes, symptoms, and treatments for diseases of the nervous system and how the disease affects various parts of the nervous system. For each assignment, students were provided with a prompt about which aspect of the topic to research, ideas for locating primary or secondary research materials, and expectations about the use of American Psychological Association (APA) style format. Each assignment included a grading rubric available to students as they completed the assignment. Accompanying each assignment, students included a two- to three-paragraph reflection. Students selected three assignments as the focal points of their final portfolios at the end of the semester and wrote a one-page self-assessment of the entire project. This general approach could be used for other areas of psychology as well: for example, stages of development in developmental psychology, disorders in abnormal psychology, statistical techniques in a research methods class, or development of theories in social psychology.

As I designed and implemented the personal interest portfolio in the Introduction to Neuroscience survey course, I grappled with several portfolio myths:

Myth 1: A portfolio is a scrapbook.

Many professors’ understanding of a portfolio is that it is a collection of assignments put together to display student work. Admittedly, when I first thought about using a portfolio for my undergraduate psychology survey course, I, too, thought that it was just a collection of assignments, perhaps loosely woven together with a common research theme. As I discovered, however, portfolios are much more. The lesson artifacts gathered in a portfolio have a specific purpose, and that purpose includes “exhibiting to the student and others the student’s efforts, progress, or achievement” (Johnson & Rose, 1997, p. 6). By engaging in the portfolio process, students and/or professors carefully collect, select, and reflect on their work. While professor feedback is part of the process, student reflection is the key to “promoting student engagement and learning” (Birkett, Neff, Pieper, 2012, p. 49) and allowing students to get a full view of their own learning.

In designing my first portfolio project, I wanted to move beyond a scrapbook approach and guide students in creating an organized and professional presentation of their work, showcasing their reflection, learning, and progress over a semester. Efforts to produce a high-quality, professional product that students could be proud of took a big leap forward this past semester with the help of a teaching assistant. The teaching assistant organized and led APA-format writing workshops for students outside of class and provided additional feedback on APA-formatting on all assignments throughout the semester. She also helped select examples of “professional” work from past semesters to share with students and explained to students the importance of a professional writing style. Together, we implemented more thorough and descriptive rubric categories for “professionalism” for each assignment. These changes resulted in a notable increase in the quality of portfolios this past semester. Taking time to explain the importance of professional presentation and to make expectations explicit helped avoid a scattered scrapbook approach to our portfolios.

Myth 2: The amount of time it takes to provide quality feedback makes it impossible to implement portfolios in a large course.

When I first thought about using portfolios in my classroom, I was a little overwhelmed with the thought of grading 70 written assignments each week, but I was determined to create an environment that promoted student learning and engagement. As a result, I decided to spend a little more time in the planning stages and found that careful planning is one of the first steps to ensuring a successful portfolio project. As a part of this first step, I defined a purpose for the portfolio and then aligned the portfolio project to the course learning objectives. Next, I designed assignments and rubrics with these learning objectives in mind. I had to allocate an appropriate amount of time for each assignment, break assignments into smaller components, and find or build links between what students were learning in class and their port folio assignments.

Once I understood the connections between the assignments and course content, it was much easier to explicitly communicate to students the purpose of the portfolio in a clear, organized, and concise manner. During each class, I demonstrated the connections between the course content and the portfolio assignments. One way I did this was to model the reflection process by showing student assignments and reflection examples. In doing so, I set high expectations where students made connections between portfolio assignments, course/class concepts, student backgrounds, and the real world. As a result, students better understood that the portfolio was not just about organization and presentation, but also about reflection and making connections.

There were six graded portfolio assignments throughout the semester, which made the final portfolio submission easier to grade at the end of the semester. In fact, the total amount of time I spent on grading was equivalent to the time I would typically spend grading homework or disconnected written assignments (Birkett, Neff, & Pieper, 2012, p. 60). One other modification that helped facilitate written feedback while using time efficiently was to allow students to omit one assignment or drop one low writing assignment grade during the semester. This not only reduced the total number of assignments that were graded throughout the semester, but it also allowed students some control over the directions of their portfolios and provided them with the flexibility to modify their schedules/work loads over the course of the semester.

Finally, because individual assignments had already been graded once and students had received feedback to incorporate, with the help of a rubric, grading of the final portfolios was relatively efficient. The final portfolio rubric included weighted components for: the inclusion of required elements, the quality of those elements, and how well the student demonstrated basic principles of neuroscience as determined by the course outcomes. Overall, I provided very few comments on the final portfolios. A copy of the rubric used in past semesters was recently published in the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching (Birkett, Neff & Pieper, 2012). While it does take longer to grade a portfolio than a multiple-choice exam, I believe the benefits of using an authentic, in-depth learning activity far outweigh the loss of time spent grading each assignment. With careful planning and deliberate decisions about where you would like to spend time providing feedback to students, the grading process can be made manageable.

Myth 3: Portfolios are a self-contained course project for students to work on independently.

This myth might only be half-myth. In my experience, it is important for students to work on developing their research and writing for a portfolio independently. However, the portfolio is not a self-contained course project. Creating a successful portfolio experience has involved students collaborating with assessment and technology experts, librarians, and classmates.

Before beginning a portfolio assignment for the first time, I sought advice from campus experts on assessment and technology about the best ways to implement this type of project. These individuals became instrumental in informing decisions about how to structure assignments, how best to use features of the learning management system (LMS) on our campus (e.g., Blackboard Learn or similar systems), and how to develop rubrics and efficiently provide feedback to students. Key questions I asked these experts included:

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of using portfolios as opposed to other assignment options?
• What potential portfolio assignment delivery and grading options are available through the LMS at our school?
• What grading rubric options are available and which will best suit the needs of the assignments?
• What types of assessments best align the portfolio project with the learning outcomes for the class?

Next, because this portfolio project involved student use of research resources to investigate self-selected topics, I sought the assistance of librarians. Who better to teach students about the research resources available at your school than the people who specialize in the process? Our university has a librarian dedicated to helping students and faculty in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, from whom I learned that the Association of College and Research Librarians (ACRL) has outlined a set of information literacy standards for undergraduate psychology students, which align closely with the APA’s Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major (see Hughes and Birkett, 2011). The overlapping nature of these guidelines helped us discuss the relevance of a portfolio project involving research in both of our disciplines. As a result, we were able to set goals for the project that could benefit students in a more comprehensive way than I had initially envisioned. Near the beginning of the semester, the librarian visited the class to discuss research strategies and processes with the students. Over the past several semesters, this librarian-led instruction has evolved to include visiting a computer lab during class, leading students step-by-step through the process of selecting keywords and search terms, refining search results, and evaluating the quality of research resources.

Finally, I wanted to give students a personal responsibility over the portfolio projects. I wanted students to see that their work mattered, and to engage them in an authentic effort to create a professional piece of work that could be read by colleagues.  I’ve tried several different approaches over the semesters but most recently found that in order to strive to make a portfolio worthy of being read by colleagues, it must actually be read by them. I did this by organizing small groups of informal student “review panels” at the end of the semester and asked students in each panel to bring their completed portfolios to class and share them with their peers. To facilitate the process, I provided students with short prompts about what aspects of the portfolio to share. In the future, it might be beneficial to establish these reviews periodically throughout the semester so that students can receive peer feedback and suggestions during the portfolio creation process.

Myth 4: E(lectronic)-portfolios are the best solution.

Working with our e-Learning Center, I considered using an e-portfolio, or an online storage system for the course portfolio assignments, but upon further assessment, I decided against it. I was more interested in students learning how to engage in the research process and reflect on their learning than being technically savvy presenters of information. On the other hand, should your portfolio purpose include “learning that involves reflection, community, and making connections” in an online environment (Hyland & Kranzow, 2012, p. 70), then you may want to carefully consider both the challenges and benefits involved in building an e-portfolio.

Introducing an online e-portfolio system takes time. You will need to ensure that either you have the technical competency to answer students’ questions about the system or that you can partner with an instructional technology expert who has the time and expertise to answer these inevitable questions. Another obstacle to consider is the need to provide students “with clear guidance on confidentiality and the use of digital media” (Moores & Parks, 2010, p. 47). Students need to understand how to cite electronic sources and when to acquire consent to avoid plagiarizing or breaching individual confidentiality. E-portfolios may have many benefits in your learning context; however, you need to clearly evaluate “what added value the electronic portfolio can bring to the group of students” (Moores & Parks, 2010, p. 47).

If e-portfolios fit your needs, they offer a number of benefits over paper portfolios. E-portfolios allow students to incorporate multimedia products or research elements into their final portfolios and make it easy for students to link to additional sources or non-traditional resources, such as videos, interviews, animations, or artwork. E-portfolios can facilitate sharing student work outside the classroom, for instance, by posting them on websites to or setting up on-line collaborations with peers to receive feedback. Finally, e-portfolios provide a unique opportunity for students in online or hybrid courses to partake in the benefits of the portfolio process. For those considering e-portfolios, Vigorito (2011) provides a wealth of ideas for beginning to implement them in psychology classes.

My current plans do not include implementing e-portfolios because I still find value in having students bring a physical copy of their work to class on the final day. Anecdotally, students also report that they like to have a final hard copy to share with classmates and a physical representation of what they have learned over the course. However, if I were to develop a fully online section of this course, I would consider many of the unique e-portfolio options available from education companies and new tools or modules being added by learning management systems.

Altogether, my experience with portfolios has been overwhelmingly positive. This brief description of the process illustrates only one form that a portfolio project may take and addresses only a few of the portfolio myths and benefits. Other educators have tailored portfolios to suit the needs of their individual courses and written at greater length about their experiences (see References and Recommended Reading section). Although research about implementing portfolios has been slow to develop (Herman & Winter, 1994), empirical studies are slowly accumulating to help inform this evidence-based practice (see References and Recommended Reading section).

I have now been using this portfolio project in the survey class for nearly three years.

Each semester brings more refinement of the process and new ideas to evaluate. Implementing portfolios and dispelling myths has proven to be a rewarding and engaging process. Our hope is that in thinking about the ideas, examples, and myths raised in this article, you may find an opportunity to consider a portfolio project for your class and realize the benefits too.

Do you have any materials for teachers wanting to implement a portfolio assignment in their classroom that you would be willing to share?

I would be happy to share materials! Please email me directly at Melissa dot Birkett at NAU dot EDU.

Would you still be willing to share examples and rubrics? Thanks

Melissa do you still have materials regarding student portfolios? I would appreciate any help you can provide. Both examples & rubrics would be GREAT! Thanks.

I would appreciate receiving rubrics and handouts on instructions. I am implementing this for a large (over 100) lecture course. Thanks!

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Criminal Justice

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Criminal profiling and behavioral analysis.

This article on criminal profiling and behavioral analysis offers a comprehensive exploration within the context of the criminal justice process . The article delves into the historical development of criminal profiling and behavioral analysis techniques, highlighting their evolution and pivotal figures. Key concepts and terminology are demystified, with an emphasis on understanding the psychological and behavioral factors influencing criminal behavior. The role of profilers in criminal investigations is detailed, elucidating their contributions and the necessary qualifications for this specialized field. Various profiling methodologies and approaches, encompassing offender, victim, and geographic profiling, are examined with case illustrations showcasing their application. The article also addresses controversies, ethical considerations, and the real-world impact of criminal profiling, emphasizing the necessity of ethical guidelines. Challenges and limitations inherent to profiling, including biases and misinterpretation of behavioral evidence, are candidly discussed. Advances in technology and ongoing research in the field are explored, along with potential future developments. The article concludes by underscoring the enduring significance of criminal profiling and behavioral analysis in the criminal justice process, advocating for further research and exploration to enhance these invaluable tools.

I. Introduction to Criminal Profiling and Behavioral Analysis

Criminal profiling and behavioral analysis represent indispensable components of modern criminal investigations. To embark on a comprehensive understanding of these critical methodologies, it is paramount to begin by defining them within the context of the criminal justice process.

Defining Criminal Profiling and Behavioral Analysis

Criminal profiling is an investigative technique employed to develop a psychological and behavioral profile of an unknown perpetrator based on the characteristics of the crime and the available evidence (Turvey, 2017). It seeks to uncover potential traits, motivations, and behavioral patterns of the offender, aiding law enforcement in narrowing down suspects and guiding their investigative efforts (Kocsis, 2015).

In parallel, behavioral analysis serves as a broader umbrella encompassing various methods employed to assess and interpret human behavior within the criminal justice context. It extends beyond profiling to encompass the examination of offender behavior, victim behavior, and crime scene behavior, thereby providing a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics at play (Pinizzotto & Finkel, 1990). Both criminal profiling and behavioral analysis are rooted in psychology and criminology, drawing from theories of personality, motivation, and forensic science to unravel the complexities of criminal behavior (Holmes & Holmes, 2009).

Significance of Profiling in Criminal Investigations

The significance of criminal profiling and behavioral analysis in criminal investigations cannot be overstated. These methodologies serve as invaluable tools for law enforcement agencies, offering insights into the motivations, characteristics, and potential future actions of offenders. Profiling provides investigators with a structured framework for understanding the unknown offender’s mindset, thereby aiding in suspect prioritization, witness interviews, and the formulation of investigative strategies (Snook et al., 2017).

Moreover, behavioral analysis allows investigators to delve deeper into the behavioral aspects of a crime. It helps uncover patterns, modus operandi, and signatures left by the offender, shedding light on the intricacies of the crime scene (Canter & Wentink, 2004). This knowledge can lead to the identification of behavioral consistencies across multiple crimes, potentially linking cases and identifying serial offenders (Hazelwood & Warren, 2000).

Overview of Key Topics

In this comprehensive article, we will navigate the intricate landscape of criminal profiling and behavioral analysis within the criminal justice process. Starting with the historical development of these techniques and the key figures who shaped their evolution, we will elucidate essential concepts and terminology central to their practice. We will delve into the pivotal role that profilers play in criminal investigations, exploring their qualifications and contributions. Subsequently, we will explore diverse profiling methodologies, including offender, victim, and geographic profiling, with case illustrations illustrating their practical application. Furthermore, we will address controversies, ethical considerations, and the real-world impact of criminal profiling, underscoring the importance of ethical guidelines. As we proceed, we will candidly discuss the challenges and limitations inherent to profiling, including biases and the potential for misinterpretation of behavioral evidence. Advances in technology and ongoing research in the field will be examined, alongside potential future developments. Ultimately, we will conclude by emphasizing the enduring significance of criminal profiling and behavioral analysis in the criminal justice process, advocating for further research and exploration to enhance these invaluable tools.

Historical Development of Criminal Profiling

Evolution of criminal profiling techniques.

Criminal profiling, often referred to as behavioral profiling or criminal investigative analysis, has evolved significantly over time. The origins of criminal profiling can be traced back to the late 19th century when Dr. Thomas Bond, a British surgeon, offered a psychological analysis of the infamous serial killer, Jack the Ripper. However, modern criminal profiling techniques began to take shape in the mid-20th century with the pioneering work of forensic psychiatrists and psychologists.

During the 1950s and 1960s, criminal profiling began to gain prominence in the United States, primarily through the efforts of Dr. James Brussel. Brussel’s work on the “Mad Bomber” case in New York City demonstrated the potential for understanding the psychology and behavior of criminals to aid in investigations. His insights into the bomber’s mindset and behaviors were instrumental in eventually apprehending the suspect.

Pioneers and Milestones in Profiling History

Several individuals have played pivotal roles in the development of criminal profiling. One of the most influential figures is Dr. John E. Douglas, a former FBI special agent who established the Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) at the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1970s. Douglas, along with his colleague Robert Ressler, conducted extensive research on serial killers and developed key profiling techniques.

In the 1980s, the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) expanded its scope beyond serial killers to include other violent crimes, such as serial rapes and child abductions. The work of agents like Roy Hazelwood and John Douglas contributed to the profiling of sexual offenders and the development of investigative strategies.

Transformation Over Time

Criminal profiling has undergone significant transformation since its inception. Early profiling efforts were often based on intuitive deductions and subjective analysis. However, advances in psychology, criminology, and technology have led to a more systematic and scientific approach to profiling.

One important milestone was the publication of the Crime Classification Manual (CCM) in 1992 by John Douglas and Ann Burgess. The CCM provided a structured framework for classifying and understanding different types of criminal behavior, further professionalizing the field of criminal profiling.

Additionally, the use of computerized databases, geographic profiling software, and empirical research has enhanced the accuracy and reliability of profiling techniques. Today, criminal profiling is widely accepted as a valuable tool in law enforcement, aiding investigations into a wide range of criminal activities beyond serial crimes, including terrorism and cybercrime.

Key Concepts and Terminology in Criminal Profiling

Understanding fundamental profiling concepts.

To comprehend criminal profiling, it’s essential to grasp fundamental concepts that underpin this field. Profiling relies on the premise that an offender’s behavior at a crime scene can provide insights into their personality, background, and motivations. One crucial concept is the organized-disorganized dichotomy . Profilers often categorize offenders as organized (methodical, with planning) or disorganized (chaotic, with little planning) based on crime scene behaviors. Understanding this helps investigators predict an offender’s characteristics, such as age, gender, and criminal history.

Significance of Motivation and Behavior Analysis

Motivation is central to criminal profiling. Profilers aim to uncover the offender’s modus operandi (MO), which refers to the techniques and methods used during a crime, and their signature , which is the unique aspect of the crime driven by the offender’s psychological need. By analyzing these elements, profilers identify the offender’s underlying motives, whether they are seeking power, control, sexual gratification, or other psychological needs.

Behavioral analysis involves examining patterns of conduct before, during, and after a crime. Victimology , the study of victims, is an essential aspect of this analysis. Profilers evaluate the relationships between victims and offenders, identifying any shared characteristics or connections that could provide valuable leads.

Typologies and Classifications in Profiling

Criminal profiling relies on the use of typologies and classifications to categorize offenders based on their behavior, personality, and modus operandi. The Hazelwood typology , for example, categorizes sexual offenders into different groups based on their motivations and behaviors. Similarly, serial killer typologies classify serial murderers into distinct categories, such as organized or disorganized, based on their behaviors.

Profiling also involves geographical profiling , a method used to predict an offender’s residence or base of operations by analyzing the spatial locations of crimes. Geographic profiling assists law enforcement in narrowing down potential suspects’ locations, contributing to the investigation.

The Role of Profilers in Criminal Investigations

Profilers’ contribution to law enforcement.

Criminal profilers play a vital role in assisting law enforcement agencies by providing behavioral analysis and psychological insights into unsolved crimes. They help investigators better understand the offender’s mindset, motivations, and modus operandi. Profilers often work on complex and high-profile cases, such as serial murders, sexual assaults, and kidnappings. Their contributions can lead to the identification and apprehension of suspects, the prevention of future crimes, and the resolution of cold cases.

Profiling is particularly valuable in cases where physical evidence is limited or non-existent. By analyzing crime scene behaviors, profilers can provide law enforcement with a psychological profile of the offender. This profile may include details about the offender’s age, gender, education level, employment status, and potential criminal history. Profilers also assist in developing a list of potential suspects based on the behavioral characteristics observed at the crime scene.

Profiling’s Impact on Criminal Investigations

The impact of profiling on criminal investigations is far-reaching. Profilers aid investigators in narrowing down suspect lists, prioritizing leads, and providing insight into offender behavior patterns. This information can help law enforcement allocate resources more effectively and focus on the most promising avenues of investigation. Profilers may also assist in developing interview strategies for witnesses and suspects, helping to elicit valuable information.

In addition to aiding investigations, profiling contributes to offender apprehension and prosecution. Profilers’ assessments of an offender’s personality, motives, and potential future behavior can guide law enforcement in making strategic decisions during the investigation. Profilers may also testify as expert witnesses in court to help jurors understand the behavioral aspects of a case, further reinforcing the prosecution’s case.

Profiler Qualifications and Training

Effective criminal profiling requires a unique skill set and a thorough understanding of criminal psychology and investigative techniques. Profilers are typically seasoned law enforcement professionals, forensic psychologists, or behavioral scientists. They must undergo specialized training in criminal profiling techniques, crime scene analysis, and offender behavior.

Training programs and qualifications for profilers vary, but many attend courses offered by law enforcement agencies, universities, or specialized organizations. Profilers often work in multidisciplinary teams, collaborating with detectives, forensic experts, and other professionals. Continuous education and training are essential to staying updated on the latest developments in criminal profiling and forensic psychology.

Psychological and Behavioral Factors in Criminal Behavior

Analyzing psychological and behavioral determinants.

Psychological and behavioral determinants play a crucial role in understanding criminal behavior. Criminal profilers rely on their knowledge of these factors to create offender profiles that guide investigations. These determinants encompass a wide range of elements, including an individual’s personality, upbringing, mental health, and life experiences. Profilers assess these factors to gain insight into an offender’s motives, patterns of behavior, and decision-making processes.

Profiling often begins with an analysis of the crime scene, looking for behavioral clues that can shed light on the offender’s psychology. Factors such as the level of violence, the degree of planning, and the victim-offender relationship are examined. Profilers also consider whether the crime was impulsive or well-organized, as this can provide important insights into the offender’s mental state.

Motivations Behind Different Types of Crimes

Criminal behavior varies widely, and understanding the motivations behind different types of crimes is essential for profilers. For example, some offenders commit crimes driven by financial gain, while others are motivated by power, control, or revenge. Profilers use their expertise to categorize crimes based on these motivations and identify consistent patterns across cases.

Sexual offenders, for instance, may be motivated by deviant sexual desires, and their crimes often involve sexual assault or harassment. Profilers consider the ritualistic aspects of these crimes, the choice of victims, and the offender’s actions before, during, and after the crime to gain insights into their motivations. Similarly, financial crimes like embezzlement or fraud are typically driven by monetary gain, and profilers look for evidence of financial distress or greed as potential motives.

Examining the Factors Explored in Profiling

In profiling, numerous factors are examined to create a comprehensive understanding of an offender’s behavior. These factors may include the offender’s age, gender, and social background, as well as any history of mental illness or substance abuse. Profilers also assess the offender’s modus operandi (MO), which refers to their consistent methods and behaviors across different crimes. The signature aspects of an offender’s MO can reveal specific psychological traits or compulsions.

Profiling also considers the geographical locations of crimes, known as geographic profiling, which examines spatial patterns in an offender’s behavior. Understanding where an offender operates can help law enforcement narrow down the search for suspects. Additionally, profilers analyze communication from the offender, such as letters, emails, or phone calls, to gain further insights into their personality and motivations.

Profiling Methodologies and Approaches

Investigating profiling methodologies and approaches.

Criminal profiling encompasses various methodologies and approaches that help investigators understand and categorize offenders. These methods rely on a combination of empirical research, psychological theories, and investigative experience. Profilers use a systematic process to analyze crime scenes, victimology, and behavioral patterns to create a comprehensive offender profile.

One widely recognized approach is the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) , which employs a three-stage process: (1) crime assessment , where profilers review case materials to develop hypotheses about the offender’s characteristics; (2) criminal profiling , which involves creating an offender profile based on the assessment; and (3) investigative support , where profilers provide guidance to investigators on strategies for apprehending the offender.

Another approach is the British-based Investigative Psychology developed by David Canter. This method focuses on the psychological aspects of criminal behavior and emphasizes the importance of empirical research to develop offender profiles. It involves the analysis of crime scene behaviors, offender characteristics, and victimology to create a comprehensive psychological profile.

Profiling Types: Offender, Victim, and Geographic

Criminal profiling includes several distinct types, each serving a specific purpose in investigations:

• Offender Profiling : This type of profiling focuses on understanding the characteristics, motives, and behaviors of the offender. Profilers attempt to determine the offender’s age, gender, personality traits, and potential criminal history based on the evidence from the crime scene.
• Victim Profiling : Victim profiling seeks to understand the relationship between the victim and the offender, as well as the victim’s vulnerabilities. Profilers assess the victim’s lifestyle, habits, and interactions to gain insights into the offender’s selection process and motivations.
• Geographic Profiling : Geographic profiling is particularly useful in cases of serial offenses, such as serial murder or rape. It involves analyzing the spatial patterns of crimes to narrow down the likely residence or operational base of the offender. Geographic profiling helps law enforcement prioritize areas for investigation and surveillance.

Case Illustrations of Profiling Techniques

Several high-profile cases have demonstrated the effectiveness of profiling techniques. One notable example is the case of the “Unabomber,” Theodore Kaczynski , who engaged in a nationwide bombing campaign. FBI profilers, using linguistic analysis and behavioral insights, created a profile that helped lead to Kaczynski’s identification and capture.

In the Washington, D.C. sniper case , which involved a series of random shootings in 2002, criminal profilers provided valuable guidance to investigators. They predicted the possibility of two offenders working together, which ultimately aided in the arrest of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo.

These case illustrations underscore the importance of criminal profiling in complex investigations. Profilers draw on their expertise to offer law enforcement valuable insights that can lead to the identification and apprehension of offenders.

Controversies and Ethical Considerations in Criminal Profiling

Controversies surrounding criminal profiling.

Criminal profiling has not been without its share of controversies and criticisms. One of the primary controversies revolves around the accuracy and effectiveness of profiling techniques. Critics argue that profiling may not always provide reliable results and can sometimes lead investigators down the wrong path, potentially resulting in miscarriages of justice. The skepticism arises from cases where profilers’ assessments were later found to be incorrect or biased.

Another contentious issue is the lack of a standardized approach to profiling. Profiling methods and terminology can vary significantly between different law enforcement agencies and profilers, which can lead to confusion and inconsistencies in practice. The absence of universally accepted guidelines has raised concerns about the reliability and credibility of profiling as an investigative tool.

Ethical Issues and Challenges in Profiling Practice

Ethical considerations in criminal profiling are paramount, given the potential impact on individuals’ lives and liberties. Profilers often deal with sensitive and confidential information, and ethical breaches can result in serious consequences. Some ethical challenges in profiling practice include:

• Confidentiality : Profilers have access to confidential case information, and maintaining the confidentiality of sensitive details is crucial. Unauthorized disclosure of information can compromise investigations and harm the reputation of individuals involved.
• Bias and Stereotyping : Profilers must guard against personal biases and stereotypes that may influence their assessments. Racial or ethnic profiling, in particular, is a concern, as it can lead to unjust targeting of certain groups and erode public trust.
• Transparency : Ethical profilers advocate for transparency in their practices. They should be clear about the limitations of profiling and openly communicate uncertainties to investigators and the public.

Necessity of Ethical Guidelines

Given the ethical complexities surrounding criminal profiling, the development and adherence to ethical guidelines are essential. Several professional organizations and law enforcement agencies have established codes of ethics and standards for profilers. These guidelines emphasize the importance of impartiality, objectivity, and the protection of individual rights.

The American Psychological Association (APA) , for instance, has established ethical principles that psychologists, including forensic psychologists involved in profiling, must follow. These principles include maintaining confidentiality, avoiding conflicts of interest, and ensuring that their work aligns with the best interests of society.

Additionally, the International Criminal Investigative Analysis Fellowship (ICIAF) and the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) provide training and guidance on ethical practices in profiling. Profilers are encouraged to undergo specialized training that includes ethical considerations and to continually update their knowledge to ensure the highest level of professionalism and ethical conduct in their work.

Real-World Applications of Criminal Profiling

Criminal profiling has found significant real-world applications in various areas of law enforcement and investigations. This section explores some of the key ways profiling is applied in practice.

Profiling’s Role in High-Profile Cases

One of the most recognized applications of criminal profiling is its role in high-profile criminal cases. Profilers are often called upon to assist in investigations when traditional methods have not yielded results. High-profile cases, such as serial murders, abductions, and terrorism, garner significant media attention and public scrutiny. In such instances, profiling can provide law enforcement agencies with valuable insights into the likely characteristics and motivations of the offender.

For example, in the case of the Unabomber , Theodore Kaczynski, the FBI utilized a profiler to analyze the manifesto he had written and create a psychological profile of the suspect. This profile helped investigators understand Kaczynski’s anti-technology beliefs and reclusive lifestyle, ultimately leading to his capture.

Solving Crimes with Profiling Insights

Criminal profiling has played a crucial role in solving various types of crimes. Profilers analyze crime scenes, victimology, and behavioral evidence to generate hypotheses about the characteristics of the offender. These insights aid investigators in narrowing down their suspect pool and directing their efforts more effectively.

In cases involving sexual offenders , profiling has been particularly valuable. Profilers can provide law enforcement with information about the offender’s likely age, background, and modus operandi. By understanding the offender’s behavioral patterns, investigators can prioritize leads and make informed decisions about how to approach the investigation.

Profiling in Serial Killer Investigations and Terrorism Cases

Serial killer investigations represent a significant application of criminal profiling. Profilers work closely with law enforcement to create detailed profiles of serial killers, outlining their behavioral traits, motives, and potential geographical locations. Profiling in serial killer cases aims to assist in the apprehension of dangerous offenders and prevent further victimization.

In the realm of counterterrorism , profiling is used to understand the motivations and behaviors of terrorists and extremist groups. Profilers analyze terrorist activities, communications, and propaganda to identify potential threats and predict their actions. Profiling in counterterrorism helps intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies devise strategies to prevent terrorist attacks and dismantle extremist networks.

Challenges and Limitations in Criminal Profiling

Criminal profiling, while a valuable tool in investigations, is not without its challenges and limitations. This section explores some of the key challenges and limitations that profilers encounter in their practice.

Identifying Profiling Challenges and Limitations

Criminal profiling is not an exact science, and its effectiveness varies depending on the case and the quality of the available evidence. One of the primary challenges is the diversity of criminal behavior. Profilers rely on patterns and generalizations, but not all criminals fit neatly into these profiles. Offenders’ motivations and behaviors can vary widely, making it difficult to create accurate profiles in every case.

Additionally, the use of profiling in cases with limited or no behavioral evidence presents a significant challenge. In cases where there are no discernible behavioral clues, profilers may struggle to provide useful insights. This limitation highlights the importance of other investigative methods alongside profiling.

Avoiding Profiling Biases and Stereotypes

Profiling, if not conducted rigorously, can lead to biases and stereotypes that hinder rather than aid investigations. Profilers must guard against developing tunnel vision and focusing too narrowly on specific characteristics or traits. This bias can result in wrongful accusations and investigative dead ends.

Moreover, there is a risk of cultural and demographic bias in profiling. Profilers may inadvertently incorporate stereotypes related to race, gender, or socio-economic status into their analyses. This can lead to an inaccurate focus on certain individuals or groups, potentially obscuring the true identity of the offender.

Risk of Behavioral Evidence Misinterpretation

Another significant limitation is the potential for misinterpretation of behavioral evidence . Profilers rely on crime scene analysis and offender behavior to develop profiles. However, misinterpretations or errors in assessing this evidence can occur. Factors such as stress, unexpected events, or the presence of multiple offenders can lead to behaviors that do not align with the profiler’s expectations, leading to inaccuracies in the profile.

Moreover, there is an ongoing debate about the reliability and validity of profiling as an investigative tool. Critics argue that profiling lacks empirical support and may be based more on intuition and subjective judgment. Ensuring that profiling remains a valid and useful tool requires continuous research and evaluation to improve its accuracy and mitigate the risk of errors.

Advances in Technology and Research in Criminal Profiling

Technological advancements in profiling.

Advancements in technology have significantly influenced the field of criminal profiling, enhancing the tools and methods available to profilers. One notable development is the utilization of geographic profiling software , which uses mathematical algorithms to analyze the spatial patterns of crimes and predict an offender’s likely residence or base of operations. This technology has been particularly useful in serial offender cases, helping law enforcement narrow down their search areas and allocate resources more efficiently. Prominent software in this domain includes Criminal Geographic Targeting (CGT) and Rossmo’s formula , which have been employed successfully in real-world investigations.

Another significant technological advancement is the use of forensic DNA analysis in profiling. DNA profiling has revolutionized the field by providing a highly accurate method of linking suspects to crime scenes or victims. Profilers can now incorporate DNA evidence into their analyses, helping confirm or refine their profiles. Moreover, the development of DNA databases has facilitated the identification of repeat offenders and the closure of cold cases.

Ongoing Research and Innovations in Profiling

Criminal profiling remains an evolving field with ongoing research efforts aimed at refining and expanding profiling techniques. One area of innovation is the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms in profiling. These technologies can analyze vast amounts of data, including crime scene details, offender characteristics, and case histories, to identify patterns and generate more accurate profiles. AI-driven profiling tools are becoming increasingly sophisticated and have the potential to enhance investigative capabilities further.

Research in behavioral science and psychology continues to advance our understanding of criminal behavior. Profilers benefit from ongoing studies that delve into the motivations and psychology of offenders, helping them refine their profiling techniques. Research on psychopathy , antisocial personality disorder , and criminal modus operandi contributes valuable insights into offender behavior, allowing profilers to create more comprehensive and accurate profiles.

Future Developments and Prospects

The future of criminal profiling holds exciting prospects, with ongoing technological advancements and research contributing to its evolution. One emerging area of interest is digital profiling . In an increasingly digital world, criminals leave behind a digital footprint through their online activities. Profilers are exploring how online behavior, such as social media posts, can provide insights into an offender’s mindset and potential actions. Integrating digital profiling with traditional methods may offer a more comprehensive view of criminal behavior.

Additionally, international collaboration and the sharing of profiling databases and techniques are on the horizon. As criminal activity often transcends borders, profilers are working together to develop standardized practices and databases that can aid in cross-border investigations. This collaborative approach has the potential to improve the accuracy and efficiency of profiling on a global scale.

In conclusion, advances in technology and ongoing research are continuously shaping the field of criminal profiling. These developments enhance the accuracy and capabilities of profilers, allowing law enforcement to leverage the latest tools and knowledge in their efforts to solve crimes and protect communities.

Key Takeaways

In this comprehensive exploration of criminal profiling and behavioral analysis, we have delved into the origins, concepts, methodologies, applications, challenges, and advancements within this dynamic field. Criminal profiling, once considered a niche practice, has evolved into an essential tool for modern law enforcement agencies. Profilers now play a critical role in assisting investigations, guiding law enforcement towards effective strategies, and contributing valuable insights into offender behavior. Our discussion has highlighted the multifaceted nature of profiling, which encompasses offender, victim, and geographic profiling, each serving a unique purpose in criminal investigations.

Ongoing Importance of Profiling in Modern Law Enforcement

The importance of criminal profiling in modern law enforcement cannot be overstated. Profiling is a bridge between behavioral science and investigative practices, offering a systematic approach to understanding and predicting criminal behavior. Its relevance extends to various domains, including serial killer investigations, terrorism cases, and high-profile crimes, where profiling insights can be instrumental in identifying, capturing, and preventing criminal acts. Moreover, profiling contributes to the justice system’s pursuit of truth and fairness by providing evidence-based guidance that can lead to more accurate suspect identifications and case resolutions.

The continued relevance of criminal profiling is underscored by its adaptability to the evolving landscape of crime, from traditional to cybercrimes. Profilers are now exploring the integration of digital profiling techniques to keep pace with technology-driven criminal activities. Furthermore, international collaboration and the development of shared databases reflect a commitment to enhancing profiling’s effectiveness in an interconnected world. As crime continues to evolve, so does the need for innovative profiling approaches, making this field an indispensable asset for law enforcement agencies worldwide.

Further Research and Exploration

As we conclude, it is essential to acknowledge that criminal profiling remains a dynamic and evolving field. Future developments in technology, neuroscience, and behavioral science are likely to expand the horizons of profiling even further. Researchers, practitioners, and law enforcement agencies must continue to collaborate and invest in research, training, and ethical guidelines to ensure that profiling remains a valuable and reliable tool for solving crimes and enhancing public safety. With ongoing efforts, criminal profiling will continue to evolve, adapt, and contribute to the pursuit of justice in the criminal justice process.

In conclusion, criminal profiling and behavioral analysis have come a long way since their inception, and their continued relevance is a testament to their effectiveness in assisting law enforcement agencies. While challenges and controversies persist, the field’s potential for innovation and its critical role in modern law enforcement remain unwavering.

References:

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• Douglas, J. E., Olshaker, M., & Burgess, A. W . (1998). The Anatomy of Motive: The FBI’s Legendary Mindhunter Explores the Key to Understanding and Catching Violent Criminals . Scribner.
• Hazelwood, R. R., & Warren, J. I . (2000). The serial rapist: His characteristics and victims. In Sexual Violence: The Unmentionable Sin (pp. 109-120). Routledge.
• Holmes, R. M., & Holmes, S. T . (2002). Profiling Violent Crimes: An Investigative Tool . Sage Publications.
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• Kocsis, R. N . (2015). Criminal Profiling: Principles and Practice . Humana Press.
• Levin, J., & Fox, J. A . (1985). Serial Murder: A Cross-National Descriptive Study. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 3 (3), 389-398.
• Meloy, J. R., & Gacono, C. B . (1992). The Mind of the Psychopathic Serial Killer. Law and Human Behavior, 16 (4), 419-426.
• Pinizzotto, A. J., & Finkel, N. J . (1990). Criminal personality profiling: An outcome and process study. Law and Human Behavior, 14 (3), 215-233.
• Rossmo, D. K . (2000). Geographic profiling . Ashgate Publishing Limited.
• Snook, B., & Keating, H . (2013). Taking stock of criminal profiling: A narrative review and meta-analysis. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 40 (9), 1091-1112.
• Snook, B., Eastwood, J., Gendreau, P., Goggin, C., & Cullen, R. M . (2017). Taking stock of criminal profiling: A narrative review and meta-analysis. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 44 (10), 1390-1418.
• Turvey, B. E . (2011). Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis . Academic Press.
• Turvey, B. E . (2017). Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis . Academic Press.
• Turvey, B. E . (2019). Criminal Profiling: Developing an Effective Science and Practice . Routledge.

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• > The Cambridge Handbook of Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis
• > Writing a Psychological Report Using Evidence-Based Psychological Assessment Methods

Book contents

• The Cambridge Handbook of Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis
• Copyright page
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction to the Handbook of Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis
• Part I General Issues in Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis
• 2 Psychometrics and Psychological Assessment
• 3 Multicultural Issues in Clinical Psychological Assessment
• 4 Ethical and Professional Issues in Assessment
• 5 Contemporary Psychopathology Diagnosis
• 6 Assessment of Noncredible Reporting and Responding
• 7 Technological Advances in Clinical Assessment
• 8 Psychological Assessment as Treatment
• 9 Writing a Psychological Report Using Evidence-Based Psychological Assessment Methods
• Part II Specific Clinical Assessment Methods
• Part III Assessment and Diagnosis of Specific Mental Disorders
• Part IV Clinical Assessment in Specific Settings

9 - Writing a Psychological Report Using Evidence-Based Psychological Assessment Methods

from Part I - General Issues in Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2019

Psychological assessment and report writing are arguably two of the more important tasks of clinical psychologists. The overall purpose of this chapter is to provide some recommendations and guidelines on how to write a psychological report using evidence-based assessment methods. Principles on psychological report writing derived from seminal papers in the field of psychological assessment were adapted and used as an organizing tool to create a template on how to write all varieties of psychological reports that incorporate evidence-based assessment methods. Report writers who share similar approaches to evidence-based assessment methods may find this template helpful when formatting their psychological reports.

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• Writing a Psychological Report Using Evidence-Based Psychological Assessment Methods
• By R. Michael Bagby , Shauna Solomon-Krakus
• Edited by Martin Sellbom , University of Otago, New Zealand , Julie A. Suhr , Ohio University
• Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis
• Online publication: 06 December 2019
• Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108235433.009

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Psychological Profile of John Wayne Gacy Case Study

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Case study: psychological profile of john wayne gacy, conclusion and implications for prevention and intervention.

John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer and rapist, who murdered and tortured 33 young boys in the 1980s. Almost all of them he lured them to his house and then strangled them to death. The bodies Gacy buried in his basement. The psychological profile of this criminal could help solve or prevent further crimes by identifying the patterns of his behavior and the nature of his abnormalities.

Background, Early, and Middle Childhood

To have a better insight into Gacy’s psychopathic behavior and crimes we need to delve into his Childhood. Gacy was born into a family of a homemaker mother and a father veteran of the First World War and a car repair person. In his young years, Gacy never received enough of his father’s love and recognition. In fact, he frequently became a victim of violence from his father’s side often for no particular reason. The senior Gacy had a problem with alcohol, which has contributed to the complicated family relationships and was often a cause for multiple beatings and humiliations he inflicted upon his son. Despite that fact, according to his statements, Gacy never hated his father and always tried to earn his respect. As a child, Gacy was having problems with excessive weight, which caused him troubles at school, namely, the lack of friends and bullying from peers (Cahill, 1986). Together with the absence of father’s approval, this probably was a reason for his low self-esteem.

Among other childhood experiences that may be considered signs of Gacy’s abnormality was the fact that a family friend molested him at the age of seven. He never told his parents about the incident out of fear of mockery and beatings from his father. A shocking experience of that kind with no help from a trained psychologist or simply an understanding family left Gacy no choice other than to reflect on this event by himself and to decide on the rightness or wrongness of it.

Gacy’s troubled childhood and his later development into a psychopath murderer can be a vivid illustration of dependence on childhood maltreatment and the formation of violent criminal behaviors. According to Caspi et al. (2002), genetic vulnerability, namely the polymorphism in monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), together with bad childhood experiences can trigger the development of aggressive behavior.

This theory is further backed by Raine (2008), who suggests that a reduced prefrontal gray matter as a result of a gene deviation triggers the brain to function atypically, which causes abnormal emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions. According to the researcher’s data, 85% of psychopaths featured the above-mentioned gene and brain deficiencies. This gives a reason to believe that the early life experience, given the susceptibility of the future offender’s mind, among other things, may have triggered the development of his psychopathic behavior.

Adolescence

In contrast to his childhood, in the adolescent period of life, Gacy earned respect and popularity among peers. At the age of eighteen, John Gacy became involved in politics and was even chosen as a Democratic Party candidate. That, according to his own words, was probably a measure to compensate for the lack of approval in early life (Cahill, 1986). Additionally, he spent considerable time in the United States Junior Chamber (Jaycee) becoming one of its honorable members.

At the age of twenty, when Gacy worked at the mortuary he was lovingly touching and hugging a dead body of a young male (Cahill, 1986). This incident shocked him and probably caused him to realize the nature of his sexual attractions that he was secretly trying to grasp at an early age. It also shows low resistance to impulses that are compliant with Häkkänen-Nyholm and Hare’s (2009) theory that identifies it as a psychopathic trait. This can also be an indication of internalizing identified among secondary psychopaths, according to DeLisi (2009). In 1964, his colleague performed oral sex on Gacy after playing him with alcohol. This event Gacy also concealed and did not press any charges, probably not to disturb an image he created in the society. Another reason being that he did not feel any or little emotional embarrassment.

Adulthood and Social life

Gacy was married twice. The first marriage lasted for five years, the second – four years. His first marriage brought him two children whom he never saw after his divorce and imprisonment. He was a successful manager in KFC restaurants owned by his first father-in-law. Later he operated his own contractor company. Gacy always dedicated a considerable amount of time to be an active member of society. Since his adolescence, he was continuously involved with Jaycee and organized parties at his basement. He was generally nice and helpful to his neighbors. Gacy performed as a clown for fundraising events in hospitals. His clown work was where he learned the handcuff trick he would later use to immobilize his victims.

His development as a recognized, high-status, and sociable person could be a reflection of his childhood traumas induced by his father and classmates and an attempt to rehabilitate himself as a decent person. It is doubtful, however, that he built his social position on purpose to establish an alibi for the upcoming crimes, but more likely he felt the need for approval and appreciation for the reasons above. Nonetheless, the trust he gained drove away the suspiciousness of the victims’ relatives and police several times. The fact that he used his authority and influence to lure his victims to his house stands to the notion that deceiving others was one of his traits as a psychopath. The latter is consistent with a theory that manipulation and pleasure of deception are characteristic of many psychopath individuals (Häkkänen-Nyholm & Hare, 2009).

His first offense Gacy committed by forcing 15-year-old Donald Voorhees to have oral sex with him. He brought him to his place by the deceit of showing him pornographic movies. He also similarly tricked his other young victims by telling them about the research he was doing on homosexuality and paid them for participating (Cahill, 1986). In the course of charging, trialing, and convicting he never admitted his guilt and tried to plead innocent. The latter could be a manifestation of externalizing guilt and pathological lying exhibited by egocentric psychopaths (Häkkänen-Nyholm & Hare, 2009). Additionally, during his trial, two psychiatrists examined and diagnosed him with antisocial personality disorder (Cahill, 1986). That condition overlaps with psychopathy in symptoms like disregard of other’s rights and freedoms, weak sense of remorse, and guilt denial. The disorder is considered to be driven by lower gray matter volumes in the prefrontal cortex (Raine, 2008).

His first murder, although not premeditated, was the final push that his mind needed to acquire a taste for it. As he later stated in his interview “that’s when I realized that death was the ultimate thrill.” He wrestled his victim to the floor, stabbed him in the chest and buried him in the basement pouring concrete over the body. As he claimed, it was a mistake as the boy accidentally had a knife in his hand and Gacy misinterpreted his intentions (Cahill, 1986). His first experience with murder allowed him to feel the ultimate arousal from violence and he could not resist anymore. This event was the last step for his turning into a murdering psychopath. It seems to be a piece of evidence for Raine’s (2008) theory that certain brain regions are underdeveloped because of a gene malformation cause deviations in emotional response towards an action or a situation. Therefore, an act of killing could have triggered an abnormal absence of fear or remorse and brought enjoyment or arousal instead.

Most of the cases included the victim’s suffocating or choking that indicates that the killer took pleasure in a slow death to prolong the thrilling sensation. To this observation speaks the fact that after catching and cuffing his victim Gacy often voiced his intentions of rape, beating, and murder. Therefore, it can be concluded that the resistance and fear gave him additional pleasure.

The fact that his victims were different in height, build and appearance but always young looking and ranged from 14 to 26 suggests that the age was the primary factor that influenced Gacy’s choice. The fact that his victims were sometimes capable of considerable physical resistance speaks to the point that his brain deficiency, among other things, included high levels of boldness that stands for the lack of fear and danger (Donahue & Caraballo, 2015). The methods of killing featured choking on gags, strangulation by hand or ligature, rope hanging, and drowning. To deliver his victims to his house he, practiced various forms of deceit, sedation with chloroform, compelling, and money offering. This shows that Gacy was also interested in exploring new ways of killing. The underarousal that stems from hypoactive nervous system pushes a psychopath to seek new sensations in violence because typical sources of arousal do not give that much reward (DeLisi, 2009).

However, when the body disposal is concerned, his ways were more practical than inspirational. Most of his victims Gacy buried on his property, mainly in his basement. He used various scent deodorizers, plastic bags, and concrete to hide the evidence. Nonetheless, he paid little attention to detail and kept personal things of his victims. The occasional character of such actions can doubtfully speak in favor of a fetish collection pattern. Gacy also left evidence or witnesses, who could testify against him, which ultimately led to his conviction. All this can evidence the compliance with Psychopathic Personality Inventory, namely with disinhibition that stands for the lack planning or caution (Donahue & Caraballo, 2015).

According to the presented data, the psychological profile of John Wayne Gacy characterizes him as a secondary psychopath. He showed little remorse for his victims, though, exhibited signs of emotional internalizing. He possessed most of the traits attributed to psychopathy in accordance with Psychopathy Checklist-Revised and Psychopathic Personality Inventory. These included superficial charm, need for stimulation, desire to deceive, impulsiveness, lack of foresight, guilt externalization, underarousal, and versatile nature of the criminal conduct. The nature of Gacy’s development as a psychopath is consistent with the theories of Raine (2008) and Caspi et al. (2002) on the genetic origin of psychopathic and antisocial behavior and environmental factors that trigger them.

As for the implications for prevention, there could be several measures introduced to practice. For example, by raising parents and neighbors’ awareness of the traits and behaviors that can identify the psychopath. There could be the obligatory psychiatric observation in schools, colleges, and universities. As for interventions, psychiatric evaluations should become an ordinary practice for all law-breakers.

Cahill, T. (1986). Buried dreams . New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Caspi, A., McClay, J., Moffitt, T. E., Mill, J., Martin, J., Craig, I. W.,… & Poulton, R. (2002). Role of genotype in the cycle of violence in maltreated children. Science , 297 (5582), 851-854.

DeLisi, M. (2009). Psychopathy is the unified theory of crime. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice , 7 (3), 256-273.

Donahue, J. J., & Caraballo, L. J. (2015). Examining the triarchic model of psychopathy using revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory. Personality and Individual Differences, 80 , 125–130.

Häkkänen-Nyholm, H., & Hare, R. D. (2009). Psychopathy, homicide, and the courts: Working the system. Criminal Justice and Behavior , 36 (8), 761-777.

Raine, A. (2008). From genes to brain to antisocial behavior. Current Directions in Psychological Science , 17 (5), 323-328.

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How to start Titan Resurgence in WoW The War Within

The Titan Resurgence is a unique quest and a Special Assignment you can do in WoW The War Within .

Every zone in The War Within expansion has a weekly Special Assignment, and the Titan Resurgence is unique for the Isle of Dorn zone. So, here’s our full guide to help you start Titan Resurgence in The War Within .

How to unlock Titan Resurgence in WoW The War Within

Before you start the Special Assignment: Titan Resurgence , you must do a couple of things first. First, you must reach the maximum level with any of your characters and complete the entire campaign story of all four zones in Khaz Algar .

You can do both things simultaneously because the Khaz Algar campaign is basically a level-up campaign , and you can do it pretty quickly. Once you get these things covered, you unlock all world quests and weekly events in all four zones, and you can finally get started. 

To unlock the Titan Resurgence, you must complete three world quests, events, or Isle of Dorn activities. Since this Special Assignment occurs only on the Isle of Dorn , only world quests and events of this zone will suffice. Here are some of the Isle of Dorn world quests and events you can do quickly:

• Theater Troupe (World Event)
• Honey Thieving Nerubians (World quest)
• Tunnels Be Gone! (World quest)
• Skyrider Racing (Race with your mount)
• Bountiful Delves (Isle of Dorn activity)

Once you do that, you unlock the Special Assignment: Titan Resurgence ,  which you c an complete immediately. 

The Special Assignment: Titan Resurgence is a type of world quest where you fight a giant Elite Eroded Titan Construct . Two possible locations of this Special Assignment automatically appear on your map.

The first is by the river west of Rambleshire, at coordinates 72.4, 30.8 , and the second is at a small island southeast of Isle of Dorn, at coordinates 70.1, 71.2 . Whichever location you got, head over there and prepare to fight and kill the Eroded Titan Construct.

Although it sounds simple enough, this isn’t an ordinary fight because you’ll have to use the Stormrider mount , which you can equip in the nearby area. This flying mount has three special abilities that help you take down the boss:

• Surge Forward (shields you)
• Whirling Surge (heals you)
• Skyward Ascent (deals damage)

To defeat the Eroded Titan Construct, use the Skyriding mount and fly around it. The boss can spawn red glowing orbs all around that you need to avoid, but it can also shoot a laser at you.

Use your utility Stormrider mount spells to protect yourself and Skyward Ascent to shoot electric attacks at the boss. Upon defeating the boss, you can obtain the following rewards:

• 200 Reputation with Council of Dornogal
• Seasoned Adventurer’s Cache

Canadian detained by China says he experienced psychological torture

OTTAWA, Ontario — A Canadian man detained by China for more than 1,000 days said he was put into solitary confinement for months and interrogated for up to nine hours every day, treatment he said amounted to psychological torture.

Michael Kovrig, speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in an interview released on Monday , also said he had missed the birth of his daughter and only met her for the first time when she was two-and-a-half years old.

Kovrig and fellow Canadian Michael Spavor were taken into custody in December 2018 shortly after Canadian police detained Meng Wanzhou , the chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, on a U.S. warrant. Both men were accused of spying.

“I still carry a lot of pain around with me and that can be heavy at times,” Kovrig said in his first substantial comments since he and Spavor were released in September 2021.

Kovrig noted that U.N. guidelines say prisoners should not be put into solitary confinement for more than 15 days in a row.

“More than that is considered psychological torture. I was there for nearly six months,” said Kovrig, a former diplomat who had been working as an adviser with a think tank when arrested.

Kovrig said there was no daylight in the solitary cell, where the fluorescent lights were kept on 24 hours a day. At one point, his food ration was cut to three bowls of rice a day.

“It was psychologically absolutely the most grueling, painful thing I’ve ever been through,” he said.

“It’s a combination of solitary confinement, total isolation and relentless interrogation for six to nine hours every day,” he said. “They are trying to bully and torment and terrorize and coerce you ... into accepting their false version of reality.”

Kovrig and Spavor were released on the same day the U.S. Justice Department dropped its extradition request for Meng and she returned to China.

The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa, responding to Kovrig’s interview, said he and Spavor had been suspected of engaging in activities endangering China’s national security.

Chinese judicial authorities handled the cases in strict accordance with the law, it said in a statement.

Bilateral ties are chilly. This month China opened a one-year anti-dumping investigation into imports of rapeseed from Canada, just weeks after Ottawa announced 100% tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles .

Kovrig’s partner was six months pregnant at the time of his arrest. She played their daughter recordings of his voice and showed pictures of her father so she would recognize him when they finally met.

“I’ll never forget that sense of wonder, of everything being new and wonderful again and pushing my daughter on a swing that had her saying to her mother, ‘Mummy, I’m so happy,’” he said.

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• Published: 23 September 2024

Individual differences in belief updating and phasic arousal are related to psychosis proneness

• Peter R. Murphy   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1963-185X 1 , 2 ,
• Katarina Krkovic 3 ,
• Gina Monov 1 ,
• Natalia Kudlek 1 ,
• Tania Lincoln   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6674-2440 3   na1 &
• Tobias H. Donner   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7559-6019 1 , 4   na1  

Communications Psychology volume  2 , Article number:  88 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Cognitive neuroscience
• Human behaviour

Many decisions entail the updating of beliefs about the state of the environment by accumulating noisy sensory evidence. This form of probabilistic reasoning may go awry in psychosis. Computational theory shows that optimal belief updating in environments subject to hidden changes in their state requires a dynamic modulation of the evidence accumulation process. Recent empirical findings implicate transient responses of pupil-linked central arousal systems to individual evidence samples in this modulation. Here, we analyzed behavior and pupil responses during evidence accumulation in a changing environment in a community sample of human participants. We also assessed their subclinical psychotic experiences (psychosis proneness). Participants most prone to psychosis showed overall less flexible belief updating profiles, with diminished behavioral impact of evidence samples occurring late during decision formation. These same individuals also exhibited overall smaller pupil responses and less reliable pupil encoding of computational variables governing the dynamic belief updating. Our findings provide insights into the cognitive and physiological bases of psychosis proneness and open paths to unraveling the pathophysiology of psychotic disorders.

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Introduction.

Many decisions entail the sequential accumulation of noisy, incomplete, or ambiguous pieces of information about the state of the world – a form of probabilistic reasoning that we here refer to as dynamic belief updating. This process is particularly challenging in natural environments 1 , which mix multiple sources of uncertainty such as noise degrading the evidence obtained during a stable environmental state, and the possibility of hidden changes in the environmental state itself 2 . Aberrant belief updating yields biased and/or noisy representations of the environment, false expectations about future events, and consequently maladaptive patterns of cognition and behavior evident in many mental disorders including psychosis 3 , 4 .

Indeed, problems in constructing accurate beliefs are a hallmark of psychotic experiences, such as delusions (i.e., fixed beliefs contradicting the evidence) or hallucinations (non-veridical percepts). While these experiences are key symptoms of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, they are also reported by people in the general population 5 . An emerging line of research points to aberrations of probabilistic reasoning in psychosis 3 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , giving rise to specific cognitive biases. For example, one well-documented bias in psychosis is the tendency to commit early to a particular interpretation of incoming information (also termed evidence) without assessing all that is available, often referred to as ‘jumping to conclusions’ bias 10 , 11 . Another, and so far disjunct, line of research has established a dysregulation (typically, increase) of tonic levels of physiological arousal in psychosis 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 . Whether and how changes in arousal levels in individuals with psychotic experiences relate to aberrations of probabilistic reasoning—in particular, to dynamic belief updating – remain open questions.

Here, we developed an integrated approach to close this gap, building on recent computational and cognitive neuroscience studies implicating central arousal systems in dynamic belief updating 17 , 18 , 19 . A growing body of work on various behavioral tasks with noisy evidence and change-points in the environmental state has established that human participants often approximate the normative (i.e., accuracy-/reward-maximizing) evidence accumulation strategy 17 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 . This normative process entails a dynamic ‘upweighting’ of new evidence (or, analogously, ‘down-weighting’ of prior beliefs) at moments when either the probability of a change in the hidden state, or uncertainty about the hidden state, are high 2 , 17 , 19 , 24 . Such transient increases in evidence sensitivity at the expense of prior beliefs are, in part, mediated by transient (‘phasic’) responses of ascending neuromodulatory systems, such as the locus coeruleus norepinephrine system 25 , 26 . In most studies of phasic arousal responses during of dynamic belief updating, across both visual and auditory domains, the activity of these systems has been inferred from the dilation of the pupil 17 , 19 , 24 , an established marker of central arousal state 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 .

We reasoned that this recruitment of phasic arousal during dynamic belief updating may be disturbed in psychosis, and that this disturbance might link the tonic hyper-arousal found in psychotic individuals 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 to their characteristic reasoning biases 3 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 . Specifically, because of a well-documented opponent interplay between tonic and phasic activity modes of central arousal systems 25 , we assumed that increased tonic arousal levels should reduce phasic, task-evoked arousal responses during cognition 33 . If phasic arousal responses fail to track the probability of hidden state changes (‘change-point probability’, CPP) or the agent’s uncertainty during belief updating as a result, this should reduce the dynamic evidence re-weighting in changing environments, altering the dynamic belief updating process overall and potentially leading to more perseverative, inflexible beliefs. To test these hypotheses, we here related individual differences in the proneness to psychosis to the dynamics of evidence accumulation in a volatile environment, as well as to the associated pupil-linked arousal responses.

Recruitment and sample

The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Faculty of Psychology and Movement Science at Universität Hamburg and included a total of 96 human participants. To avoid overly strong skewness of P-scores with the majority scoring at the low end of the psychosis continuum, we aimed to recruit a sample that mirrored distributions found in large-scale community samples, where the 50th percentile equalled a P-score of 1.4 34 . An interim check of our sample data after recruiting 73 participants revealed the low end of the continuum to be slightly over-represented. We therefore adjusted our recruiting strategy for remaining participants by pre-screening for P-scores above 1.4. Out of 75 pre-screened individuals, 36 reached this cutoff, of which 18 completed the study. Additionally, 5 randomly chosen individuals with P-scores lower than 1.4 were invited to participate. As a result, we arrived at a sample with a distribution that corresponds to the distributions found in more representative community samples 34 . All participants provided written informed consent, were aged between 18–55 years old, fluent in the German language, had an IQ > 85 as assessed by the Multiple Choice Vocabulary Test 35 , had normal/corrected-to-normal vision, were not pregnant, and had no dementia or other organic brain disorders, acute intoxication or acute suicidal tendencies. Participants received remuneration in the form of an hourly rate (€10 per hour), a bonus for completing both of two planned sessions (€15), and compensation if they incurred costs for a SARS-CoV-2-antigen test to participate in the study.

Four participants were excluded from all analyses due to failing to complete both testing sessions, and 2 more participants were excluded due to incomplete CAPE questionnaire responses. The remaining 90 participants (mean ± s.d. age of 31.6 ± 9.5 years, range 18–55; 48 female participants and 42 male participants; both age and sex determined via self-report; data on race/ethnicity not collected) were included in all analyses of data from the main behavioral task, having completed two experimental sessions (session 1: 180 min; session 2: 160 min). A further 2 participants were excluded from analyses of data from the delayed match-to-sample task having failed to complete any blocks of this task due to time constraints.

Of the 90 participants included in all main analyses, four self-reported a previous diagnosis of depression, one of emotionally unstable personality disorder (impulsive type), one of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), one of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), one of comorbid depression and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and one of psychosis due to substance abuse. The latter participant had a CAPE P-score of 2.1, which placed them in the highest P-score quintile. Except for the summed modulations of evidence weighting by CPP and -| ψ  | (see ‘Psychophysical kernels’ below; effect trending at P  = 0.1 with this participant excluded), all effects of P-score quintile reported in the main text remained statistically significant even when this participant was excluded from the analysis.

For participants that completed the full experimental protocol, the first session consisted of study information and consent, brief intelligence screening via Multiple Choice Vocabulary Test 35 and visual attention and task switching task Trail-Making-Test (TMT) 36 , a questionnaire battery, training on the main behavioral task and 7–8 experimental blocks of this task (see below). The questionnaire battery was administered after the first three experimental blocks, after which the remaining experimental blocks took place. The second session consisted of 8-9 blocks of the main behavioral task as well as training and between 2 and 3 experimental blocks of the delayed match-to-sample working memory task halfway through the set of blocks of the main task (see below). We also measured at-rest heart rate variability at the beginning of each session via electrocardiogram, though results pertaining to these data are not reported here.

Questionnaire battery

The Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE) 37 , 38 is a self-report questionnaire consisting of 42 items that assesses frequency and distress of lifetime psychotic experiences. It subdivides into three factors: negative symptoms, positive symptoms, and depression symptoms. Previous research has shown that the CAPE has strong evidence of both convergent and discriminative validity, as demonstrated by Hanssen et al. 39 . Additionally, the instrument has been shown to be reliable over time, with good test-retest reliability 37 . The German version of the CAPE, which we employed here, has also been validated in terms of its factorial and criterion validity 34 . Here, we focused on the frequency dimension of the P-score, both in regard to sampling the high end of the continuum and in terms of the main analyses. The D- and N- scores were used to assess specificity of the findings.

The Trier Inventory for Chronic Stress (TICS) 40 and Trauma History Questionnaire (THQ) 41 were used to assess the chronic stress load of the participants. Self-efficacy was assessed with the General Self-Efficacy Scale (SWE) 42 and achievement motivation with the Achievement Motives Scale-Revised (AMS-R) 43 . Due to the fact that these scales were utilized to address hypotheses unrelated to the present study, we do not describe them in detail here nor report related results.

Main behavioral task

The main task was a two-alternative forced choice task in which the generative task state S  = { left , right } could change unpredictably (Fig.  1a ). Participants were asked to maintain fixation at a centrally presented mark throughout the trial, monitor a sequence of evidence samples and report their inference about S at the end of the sequence.

a Schematic of two-alternative perceptual choice task with hidden state changes. Locations of successive evidence samples (checkerboard patches) were drawn from one of two noisy sources that switched unpredictably over time, and participants reported the inferred active source when the sequence terminated. Each possible sample location provided a unique amount of evidence for one or the other alternative, as illustrated by the color bar shown to participants throughout (yellow ≈ no evidence, green ≈ strong evidence for leftward source, red ≈ strong evidence for rightward source). The sample stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) was 400 ms. b Schematic of normative belief updating process. c Tracking central arousal state through monitoring of pupil diameter. Rapid, non-luminance-mediated dilations of the pupil are an established proxy of the activity of neuromodulatory brainstem systems with wide projections throughout the brain, by which they control cortical network state. See main text for details. d Measuring individual psychosis proneness via CAPE questionnaire. e Distribution of psychosis proneness (P-scores) extracted from questionnaire data ( n  = 90 participants). Vertical dashed lines indicate cutoffs for lowest and highest P-score quintiles, determining subgroups ( n  = 18 participants in each) used for the majority of our analyses; means are mean P-scores within each subgroup. a , b Adapted from ref. 17 .

Stimuli were generated using Psychtoolbox 3 for Matlab 44 . Visual stimuli were presented in a behavioral laboratory on a Dell P2210 22-inch monitor with resolution set to 1680 x 1050 and refresh rate to 60 Hz. Participants were seated with their head in a chinrest 52 cm from the monitor during task performance.

Stimuli were presented against a gray background. Three placeholders were present throughout each trial: a light-gray vertical line extending downward from fixation to 7.4° eccentricity; a colored half-ring in the lower visual hemifield (polar angle: from -90 to +90° relative to bottom of vertical meridian; eccentricity: 8.8°) which depicted the LLR associated with each possible sample location; and a fixation mark as a black disc of 0.18° diameter superimposed onto a disk of 0.36° diameter with varying color informing participants about trial intervals. The colors comprising this half-ring and the fixation point were selected from the Teufel colors 45 . Evidence samples consisted of achromatic, flickering checkerboards (temporal frequency: 10 Hz; spatial frequency: 2°) within a circular aperture (diameter = 0.8°), and varied in polar angle (constant eccentricity of 8.1°).

Samples were presented for 250 ms (sample-onset asynchrony (SOA): 400 ms). Samples were centered on polar angles x 1 ,…, x n drawn from one of two truncated Gaussian distributions p ( x  |  S ) with variance σ left = σ right  = 27° and means symmetric about the vertical meridian ( μ left  = −17°, μ right  = +17°). These parameters equated to a signal-to-noise ratio ( SNR ) for the generative distributions of ( μ right - μ left ) / σ  = 1.26. If a draw x i was <-90° (>+90°), it was replaced with −90° ( + 90°). S was chosen at random at the start of each trial and could change with a hazard rate H  =  p ( S n = right  |  S n-1 = left ) = p ( S n = left  |  S n-1 = right ) = 0.1 after each sample. 65% of sequences contained 10 samples. The remaining 35% (randomly distributed in each block) contained (with equal probability) 2-9 samples and were introduced to encourage participants to attend to all samples. These task parameters were chosen to ensure expressive belief updating dynamics characterized by periods of strong belief coupled with regular moments of surprise and uncertainty. The motivation behind specific parameter values is provided in Supplementary Table  1 .

Each trial began with a variable fixation baseline period (uniform between 0.5–1.5 s) during which a stationary checkerboard patch was presented at 0° polar angle. This checkerboard then began to flicker, followed after 400 ms by the first evidence sample. The final sample of the sequence was then replaced by the stationary 0° patch and a ‘Go’ cue instructed participants to report their choice 0.7–1.2 s (uniform) after sequence end. They pressed left or right ‘CTRL’ keys on a keyboard, with their left or right index fingers, to indicate left or right , respectively. Auditory feedback 0.05 s post-response informed participants whether their choice corresponded to the true S at sequence end (see Stimuli ): an ascending 350 → 950 Hz tone (0.25 s) for correct choice and descending 950 → 350 Hz tone for incorrect choice. This was followed by an inter-trial interval of 1.2 s when participants could blink. During the preparatory interval, sample sequence and subsequent delay, the color of the second fixation disk was light red; the ‘Go’ cue was this disk becoming light green; and, the inter-trial period was indicated by the disk becoming light blue.

Participants practiced the task prior to the main experiment, with detailed initial illustrations of the generative distributions and incremental increases in trial complexity. These instructions were delivered using a cover story that the task involved viewing sequences of footballs (the evidence samples) that two players kicked from the same point (fixation) but aiming at different goals (polar angles corresponding to the means of the two generative distributions). The players had quite bad aim (variance of the generative distributions) and could swap in and out of play between each kick with a fixed probability (the task H ); and the participants’ task was to infer which player kicked the last football in each sequence. They were never informed about the exact task H , rather that the likelihood of a change in football player ( S ) from one sample to the next was “not very high. For example, there will be some trials in which there are no changes at all. However, many trials will have one change, and some trials can even have several changes.” Following training, participants completed 15-16 blocks of 86 trials of the task, spread over both testing sessions. They received feedback about their average performance at the end of each block, and were instructed to fixate the central disk and minimize blinking during the trial.

Working memory task

Participants also completed a visuospatial delayed match-to-sample working memory task 46 presented on the same monitor as the inference task, again via Psychtoolbox 3. The task was to decide whether a sample stimulus and a test stimulus separated by a variable delay occurred in the same or different locations. Each trial began with presentation of a central white fixation cross (arm length: 0.8 degrees of visual angle, d.v.a.; arm thickness: 0.2 d.v.a.) that was present for the entire trial. After a variable baseline interval (uniform distribution with range 0.5-2.0 s), the sample stimulus was presented for 0.5 s, followed by the delay (1, 3 or 9 s, equiprobable) and then the test stimulus (0.5 s). Sample and test stimuli were circular checkerboard patches (diameter: 2.8 d.v.a.; spatial frequency: 1 cycle per d.v.a), appearing in the lower visual hemifield at a fixed eccentricity of 6 d.v.a. The sample could be presented at any of 12 equiprobable locations, ranging from ~-76.15° to ~76.15° of polar angle (fixed spacing ≈ 13.85°), while the most extreme samples could still be flanked by a ‘near non-match’ test stimulus on both sides (amounting to 14 possible test stimulus locations, spaced evenly from −90° to 90°). The test occurred at either the same location as the sample or at a different location (see below). Upon offset of the test stimulus, the fixation cross changed color from white to light blue, which prompted participants to report their decision via right- or left-handed button press for “same” or “different” judgments, respectively. This response was soon (0.1 s) followed by visual feedback about its accuracy (“Correct” in green font; “Error” in red font; font size 36, presented 1.0 d.v.a. above fixation for 0.75 s). Each trial was followed by a fixed 2 s interval during which participants were instructed to blink if needed, and this was followed by the baseline period of the following trial.

The task was designed to consist of three trial categories, each with a desired frequency of occurrence within a block of trials: ‘Match trials’ (sample and test at identical positions, 1/3 of trials), ‘Near non-match trials’ (smallest possible sample-test distance of 13.85°; 1/3 of trials), and ‘Far non-match trials’ (sample-test distance randomly chosen from the remaining possible sample-test distances, which could be between 27.7° and ~166.15° depending on the sample location; 1/3 of trials). Trials were presented in blocks of 63 trials each, within which the different delay durations and sample-test distances were randomly interleaved under the above-mentioned constraint. Participants received feedback about their average performance at the end of each block. They were instructed to fixate the central cross and minimize blinking during the trial.

Participants also underwent initial training to familiarize them with the task. This consisted of a general instruction of the task rules through PowerPoint slides, as well as practice with various aspects of the task (stimulus appearance, timings, response contingencies) that, as above, grew in complexity culminating in practice of full task trials. Once training was complete, each participant then performed 2 or 3 blocks of the task (mean = 2.25, s.d. = 0.44), with the specific number dependent on time constraints.

Trials on which participants pressed a key other than the designated response keys, response time was ≤ 0.2 s, or response time exceeded the participant’s mean response time by 4 s.d. were all excluded from analysis of response accuracy on the working memory task. Mean response accuracy was computed as the proportion of correct responses (i.e., “same” response on match trials and “different” response on non-match trials).

Normative model for main behavioral task

The normative model for the main task prescribes the following computation 21 :

Here, L n was the observer belief after encountering the evidence sample x n , expressed in log-posterior odds of the alternative task states; LLR n was the log-likelihood ratio reflecting the relative evidence for each alternative carried by x n ( LLR n = log( p ( x n | right )/ p ( x n | left ))); and ψ n was the prior expectation of the observer before encountering x n . We used this model to derive two computational quantities: CPP and - |ψ  | . CPP was the posterior probability that a change in generative task state has just occurred, given the expected H , the evidence carried by x n , and the observer’s belief before encountering that sample L n-1 , computed as follows (see ref. 17 for derivation):

where N( x  |  S ) denoted the probability of sample x given a normal distribution with mean μ S and s.d. σ S . Uncertainty was defined as the negative absolute of the prior (- |ψ n  | ), reflecting uncertainty about the generative state before observing x n .

Main task model fitting and comparison

We first computed the accuracy of participants’ choices with respect to the true final generative state, and compared this to the accuracy yielded by three idealized decision processes presented with identical stimulus sequences: normative accumulation (Eqs.  1 and 2 ), perfect accumulation, and only using the final evidence sample. For each trial, choice r ( left  = -1, right  = +1) was determined by the sign of the log-posterior odds after observing all samples: \({r}_{trl}=sign({L}_{n,trl})\) for normative, \({r}_{trl}=sign({\sum }_{i=1}^{n}LL{R}_{i,trl})\) for perfect, and \({r}_{trl}=sign(LL{R}_{n,trl})\) for last-sample, where n indicated the number of samples presented on trial trl .

We fit variants of the normative model to participants’ behavior, assuming that choices were based on the log-posterior odds L n,trl for the observed stimulus sequence on each trial. In line with previous work with this model 17 , 21 , different model variants had different combinations of the following free parameters: L n,trl was corrupted by a decision noise term ν , such that choice probability \(\hat{r}\) was computed as:

We also allowed for (i) misestimation of the task H by fitting a subjective hazard rate parameter \(\hat{H}\) ; (ii) a bias in the mapping of stimulus location to LLR such that subjective evidence strength \({{LLR}}_{n}=LL{R}_{n}\cdot B\) , where B captured the equivalent of under- (B < 1) or over-estimation (B > 1) of the signal-to-noise ratio of the task generative distributions (also known as ‘expected uncertainty’ 2 ); and (iii) a bias in the weighting of evidence samples that were (in)consistent with the existing belief, such that \({{LLR}}_{n}=LL{R}_{n}\cdot IU\) for any sample n where \(sign(LL{R}_{n})\ne sign({\psi }_{n})\) .

We fitted the parameters by minimizing the cross-entropy between participant and model choices:

where r trl was the participant choice. This objective was minimized via particle swarm optimization (PSO toolbox 47 ), setting wide bounds on all parameters and running 300 pseudorandomly-initialized particles for 1500 search iterations. The relative goodness of fit of different model variants was assessed by the Bayes Information Criterion (BIC):

where k was the number of free parameters and n was the number of trials.

We fit four different model variants including various combinations of the above free parameters (free parameters in each variant are listed in Supplementary Fig.  2a ). Model validation through parameter recovery analyses served to rule out two models that included the IU parameter capturing a bias in weighting of (in)consistent samples, because these models had substantially inflated variance of \(\hat{H}\) estimates (Supplementary Fig.  2b, c ) that were strongly co-linear with the IU estimates themselves (Supplementary Fig.  2d ), revealing significant identifiability issues. Quantitative model comparison (based on BIC scores derived from Eq.  6 ; Supplementary Fig.  2e ) of the two remaining model variants favored a simple 2-parameter normative model fit that included only decision noise ( v ) and subjective hazard rate ( \(\hat{H}\) ) as free parameters.

Psychophysical kernels

We quantified the time course of the impact of evidence from the main task on choice using logistic regression:

where i and j indexed sample position within sequences of n samples ( n  = 10 for this analysis), and LLR was the true LLR . The dependent variable was participants’ choice ( left  = 0, right  = 1) or model choice probability. The set β 1 quantified the impact of evidence at each position on choice and the sets β 2 and β 3 modulations of evidence weighting by CPP and - |ψ  | , respectively. CPP was logit-transformed, and both variables were then z-scored. Additionally, all regressors were z-scored across the trial dimension. We fit the logistic regression models using 10-fold cross-validation and an L1 regularization term of λ  = 0.002, without which convergence issues were encountered for a small number of participants.

We tested for sample positions with above-chance evidence weighting ( β 1 ) and CPP ( β 2 ) and - |ψ  | ( β 3 ) modulations by comparing the group-level distributions of beta weights against zero using cluster-based permutation testing (two-tailed; 10,000 permutations; cluster-forming threshold: P  < 0.01), which corrects for multiple comparisons across sample positions 48 . For each of the CPP and - |ψ| modulations, this procedure yielded a large contiguous cluster of sample positions characterized by the expected positive effects (between sample positions 4–10 for CPP , and sample positions 3–8 for - |ψ  | ; Fig.  2c–e ). For analyses of individual differences (across-participant correlations, comparison of sub-groups defined by CAPE scores), we averaged the beta weights within these clusters to compute a scalar modulation score per individual participant; and for such analyses combining CPP and - |ψ| modulations, we summed across these two scalar values. We computed a ‘kernel half difference’ measure capturing the relative degree of primacy or recency in average evidence weighting by subtracting the mean of β 1,1-5 from the mean of β 1,6-10 . We also divided this measure by the sum across all β 1 to compute a complementary normalized kernel half difference measure that is independent of individual differences in overall kernel magnitude 49 . Differences in kernel-based measures across participant subgroups (e.g., lowest and highest quintiles) defined by CAPE P-scores were assessed via two-sample permutation test (two-tailed; 10,000 permutations). Confidence intervals around computed statistics were estimated via bootstrapping with replacement (10,000 permutations), and we quantified evidence for or against the hypothesis of an effect of subgroup through Bayes factors (BF 10 ; using the Cauchy distribution with scale parameter \(\sqrt{2}/2\) as the prior on standardized effect sizes 50 ). Across-participant correlations were assessed via Spearman correlation.

a Choice accuracies of n  = 90 human participants (gray bars), with accuracies of the ideal observer (navy), perfect integrator (green) and deciding based on last sample heuristic (green) given the same stimulus sequences shown for reference. Red dots, accuracies of normative model fits. b Best-fitting parameters of normative model fits for individual participants (gray circles) and group means (black horizontal bars). c Time-resolved weight of evidence on choice, derived by regressing participants’ single-trial choices onto evidence strengths (log-likelihood ratios, LLRs) per sample position within each trial. d , e Modulation of evidence weighting, estimated via LLR interaction terms in the regression model, by two variables that the normative model prescribes sensitivity to: change-point probability (CPP, d ), which captures the degree to which a new evidence sample conflicts with the current belief; and uncertainty (-|ψ | , e ) in the belief prior to observing each new sample. In c – e : black, mean and s.e.m. (shaded areas) of participants’ data; significance bars, time points where weights differ from zero ( P  < 0.05, two-tailed cluster-based permutation test; evidence weighting and largest CPP and -|ψ| modulation clusters, P  < 0.0001). Red shadings, mean +/− s.e.m. of normative model fits. Gray thin lines, individual participants. n  = 90 participants for calculation of means and s.e.m. in all panels.

Pupillometry acquisition and preprocessing

Gaze position and pupil diameter from both eyes were recorded at 250 Hz with an SMI RED 500 Eye-Tracker. We restricted our current analysis to pupil data from the main behavioral task. For each task block, we first selected the eye (left vs right) giving rise to the pupil signal with the lowest variance across the entire time series and discarded the signal from the other eye from further analysis. Blinks and noise transients were removed from the remaining pupillometric time series using a linear interpolation algorithm in which artifactual epochs were identified via thresholding of the raw pupil size (1.5 mm) and the first derivative of the z-scored time series (threshold = ±3.5 zs −1 ). The average time series was then band-pass filtered (0.06–6 Hz, Butterworth), re-sampled to 50 Hz, and z-scored per block. We computed the first derivative of the result, referred to as pupil below. Finally, any trial (from onset of the first evidence sample to 5.5 s after trial onset) in which either left or right pupil signals were contaminated by >60% artifactual samples, or any sample forming part of a contiguous artifactual epoch of longer than 1 s, was excluded from all further analysis. For visualization and analysis of the trial-related pupil response in the raw signal (but not it’s derivative), we baseline-corrected the signal for each trial by subtracting the mean pupil size in a 0.1 s window centered on that trial’s onset.

Modeling of evoked pupil responses

We assessed the sensitivity of pupil to computational variables by segmenting the signal from 0–1 s after sample onset (full-length trials) and fitting:

where t indicated time point, x _ gaze and y_gaze were horizontal and vertical gaze positions, and base was the ‘baseline’ pupil diameter (−0.05–0.05 s around sample onset). | LLR | captured a possible relationship with ‘unconditional’ Shannon surprise 17 . Previous sample CPP , - |ψ| and | LLR | were included because the pupil response is slow, meaning correlations with variables from the previous sample may have caused spurious effects.

We tested for sample-aligned time points with above-chance CPP ( β 1 ) and - |ψ  | ( β 2 ) encoding via cluster-based permutation test (two-tailed; 10,000 permutations; cluster-forming threshold: P  < 0.01). For each of the CPP and - |ψ| modulations, this yielded a large contiguous cluster of time points characterized by the expected positive effects (between ~0.4–1.0 s for CPP , and ~0.2–0.45 s for - |ψ  | ; Fig.  2c–e ). For analyses of individual differences, we averaged the beta weights within these clusters to compute a scalar value capturing encoding strength per individual participant; and for such analyses combining CPP and - |ψ| modulations, we summed across these two scalar values. Informed by visualization of the trajectories of the average trial-evoked pupil response, we also computed two scalar measures capturing the magnitude of this response: by averaging the raw (baselined) signal from 0.5–5.5 s following trial onset, and the derivative from 0.2–1.0 s following trial onset. As above for the analysis of kernels, differences in pupil measures across participant subgroups (e.g., lowest and highest quintiles) defined by CAPE P-scores were assessed via two-sample permutation test (two-tailed; 10,000 permutations), and across-participant correlations were assessed via Spearman correlation.

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the  Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.

We related individual differences in dynamic belief updating and pupil-linked arousal responses to the individual psychosis proneness in a large community sample of 90 participants (Fig.  1 ; see Methods for details on recruitment), combining the behavioral task (Fig.  1a ), modeling (Fig.  1b ) and psychophysiological (Fig.  1c ) approach developed in Murphy et al 17 . with responses to an established self-report questionnaire.

Psychosis proneness was assessed with the frequency dimension of the positive (P) score of the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE; Fig.  1d ) 37 , 38 . This score was chosen because it assesses the type of psychotic experiences with an intuitive relationship to aberrant belief formation (i.e., hallucinatory experiences and delusional beliefs), is most indicative of psychosis proneness across the continuum and can be used as a screening tool to identify those at risk of future development of psychosis 51 , 52 . In line with the recommended scoring procedure, the positive score (henceforth: P-score) was calculated by averaging responses across a subset of 20 predefined questionnaire items to compute a single summary metric. We found a broad range of P-scores across our sample, reaching values found in individuals fulfilling established criteria for ultra-high risk of developing psychosis (P-score, frequency dimension > 1.7 52 ) in a modest (20%) fraction of participants (Fig.  1e ; see Supplementary Fig.  1 for distributions of the N (negative) and D (depressive) scales). With both categorical (e.g., healthy versus diagnosis of schizophrenia or ‘ultra-high risk’ status) and continuous (i.e., recognition of a psychosis continuum 5 ) views on psychotic symptomatology being prevalent, below we report both discrete (participant binning) and continuous approaches (between-participant correlations) to studying these individual differences. We did not have a priori hypotheses about which, if either, would yield clearer effects. Because the binning approach enabled a direct inspection of the below-described measures of belief updating for different patient sub-groups, we opted for presenting these results in the main figures.

The task (Fig.  1a ) required accumulation of evidence provided by discrete visual ‘samples’, under the possibility of hidden changes in the underlying (categorical) environmental state that participants had to infer. On each trial, between 2 and 10 evidence samples were presented sequentially, with the spatial location of each sample providing noisy information about the hidden state. Sample locations were generated from one of two probability distributions (one per environmental state). The generative state was chosen randomly at the beginning of each trial and could then change after each sample, with a fixed probability (task hazard rate, H ) of 0.1 in the main experiment (see Supplementary Table  1 for summary of all task parameters and motivation of specific values). Participants were asked to report the generative state at the end of each sequence (left- or right-handed button press).

The normative computation maximizing accuracy on this task (Fig.  1b ) entails the accumulation of evidence samples (expressed as log-likelihood ratios, LLR , quantifying strength of support for one over the other state) into an evolving belief L (also expressed as log-odds ratio) that governs the final decision 21 . The key difference between the normative model and standard evidence accumulation models (such as drift diffusion 53 ) lies in a non-linear function through which the updated belief after each sample n ( L n ) is passed to compute the prior for the next updating step ( ψ n+1 ). This non-linearity depends on the agent’s estimate of the environmental volatility, the subjective hazard rate \(\hat{H}\) . This way, the normative model strikes an optimal balance between formation of strong beliefs in stable environments versus fast change detection in volatile environments. In the following, we used this normative model in its pure form (called ‘ideal observer’ below, i.e., with exact knowledge of the task H and without any internal noise) as a benchmark against which to compare the behavior of human participants. We also fitted variants of this model combined with deviations from this pure form to each participant’s choices.

Participants accumulate evidence dynamically

We previously found using a combination of approaches—comparison of human decisions to those of idealized decision processes, analysis of specific behavioral readouts of evidence integration, and fitting variants of the normative model to observed choices – that participants base their decisions on our task on the approximately normative belief updating process, subject to internal noise and biased encoding of the environmental statistics. Here, we expected to replicate these findings, applying the same complementary analyses to data from our larger community sample (Fig.  2 ).

We gained an initial impression of how our participants made decisions on the task by comparing their responses to those of three idealized decision processes, one of which was the ideal observer. While, as expected, all participants achieved accuracies below the theoretical upper limit provided by the ideal observer, most performed better than alternative benchmarks corresponding to sub-optimal decision processes (76.7% with better performance than ‘perfect integration’, which equates to uniform evidence weighting without information loss and is normative only for completely stable environments, H  = 0; 87.8% with better performance than a ‘choose based on last sample’ heuristic which is normative only for completely unpredictable environments, H  = 0.5) even though these were not contaminated by any noise (Fig.  2a ). The participants’ choices were also more consistent with those of the ideal observer (same choice on 85.7% of trials, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (C.I.) = [84.8, 86.6]) compared to the alternative processes (perfect integrator: 78.1%, 95% C.I. = [77.4, 78.9], 95% C.I. on difference of means = [6.4, 8.7], P  < 0.0001; last-sample heuristic: 76.4%, 95% C.I. = [75.2, 77.7], 95% C.I. on difference of means = [7.8, 10.7], P  < 0.0001; paired-samples permutation tests).

The notion that participants approximated normative belief updating for our volatile environment was also supported by fitting alternative variants of the normative model to their choices (Fig.  2 ; see Methods and Supplementary Fig.  2a for description of candidate models and their free parameters). Informed by model validation and comparison (Supplementary Fig.  2 ; Methods ), the variant of the normative model that we used for all further analyses contained two free parameters: a subjective hazard rate ( \(\hat{H}\) ) that could deviate from the task hazard rate, and a decision noise parameter 17 , 21 , 23 (Fig.  2b ). The choices of this best-fitting model variant (‘normative fit’ in Fig.  2a , red) were highly consistent with participants’ choices (86.9%, 95% C.I. = [86.1, 87.7]). The model fits also suggested that while at the group level participants appeared to form accurate estimates of the level of volatility in the task ( \(\hat{H}\)  = 0.099, 95% C.I. = [0.084, 0.115]; P  = 0.9 compared to task H of 0.1, permutation test), there was substantial variation in these estimates across individual participants ( \(\hat{H}\) range = [0.0003, 0.412]; Fig.  2b ). Overall, these results are in line with previous work in smaller samples 17 , 21 , 23 , 54 .

We used psychophysical kernels as a model-free psychophysical tool to uncover the temporal profiles of participants’ evidence accumulation processes 55 (i.e., evidence weighting profiles). Psychophysical kernels quantify the impact of fluctuations of evidence at a given sequence position on the final choice (Methods). We found significant and increasing weights on choice for all sample positions (all weights above 0), demonstrating that participants used all evidence in their decisions, albeit with a recency temporal profile (i.e., stronger impact for late than early samples; Fig.  2c ). This profile is predicted by the normative belief updating model (Fig.  2c , red). We used a simple scalar metric to quantify the recency effect, by subtracting mean weights across the first half of the sequence (first 5 samples) from mean weights across the second half of the sequence (last 5 samples). Positive values of this so-called ‘kernel half difference’ metric indicated recency in evidence weighting, negative values indicated primacy, and values close to zero indicated equal weight to all samples. The kernel half differences provided clear support for recency (mean = 0.85, 95% C.I. = [0.76, 0.93], P  < 0.0001, two-tailed permutation test against 0).

Critically, our participants also exhibited modulations of their evidence weighting profiles (Fig.  2d–e ) that were previously identified as diagnostic of the normative accumulation process and observed in smaller samples – specifically the dynamic modulation of the impact of evidence on choice by change-point probability ( CPP) and uncertainty (-| ψ  | ) 17 . CPP is the posterior probability of a change in generative state, given the subjective hazard rate, prior belief state and new evidence sample. Because it is contingent on internal belief states and representations of environmental volatility, this latent variable captures a high-level form of surprise. Uncertainty is captured by the (sign-flipped) absolute strength of the belief before a new sample is encountered (i.e., the prior). We estimated CPP and -| ψ  | , for each sample n , from belief trajectories L n predicted by the normative fits 17 (Methods) and quantified their modulatory effects on evidence weighting profiles through an extension of our logistic regression approach (Methods).

The CPP modulation can be interpreted as the readiness to change one’s belief state in the face of contradictory (disconfirmatory) evidence, a construct prevalent in psychosis research (see Discussion); while the -| ψ | modulation captures a tendency to give greater weight to new information when in a state of uncertainty, often an adaptive policy in changing environments 56 , 57 . Both modulations reflect the dynamic, context-dependent weighing of new information that permits the flexible belief updating prescribed by the normative model 17 . There was a robust modulation of evidence weighting by CPP ( P  < 0.0001 for cluster encompassing sample positions 4–10, cluster-based permutation test; Fig.  2d ), particularly strongly for samples in the second half of the evidence stream (mean CPP ‘kernel half difference’ = 0.17, 95% C.I. = [0.12, 0.21], P  < 0.0001, two-tailed permutation test). There was also a reliable -| ψ | modulation ( P  < 0.0001 for cluster encompassing sample positions 3–8; Fig.  2e ). As in previous investigations in similar task contexts 17 , we found that the effect of CPP was the stronger of these dynamic modulations of evidence weighting (difference of means across each identified cluster = 0.13, 95% C.I. = [0.1, 0.16], P  < 0.0001, two-tailed permutation test). As also reported previously 17 , the observed modulation of evidence weighting by CPP was stronger in the participants than the normative model fit to their choices (Fig.  2d , compare black and red).

In sum, the above results replicate previous findings with the same decision-making task 17 , here in a community sample of participants more representative of the general population than the samples used in previous studies of the computational and neural bases of belief updating in changing environments (but see ref. 22 ).

Participants prone to psychosis exhibit altered signatures of belief updating

One commonly reported cognitive bias in psychosis is the tendency to ‘jump to conclusions’ – a premature commitment to a particular hypothesis without assessing all the available information 10 , 11 . A related phenomenon is the so-called ‘bias against disconfirmatory evidence’ – a failure to change an initial hypothesis about a hidden state in the face of evidence against that hypothesis 58 , 59 . Such biases may result from alterations of evidence weighting: giving too strong a weight to initially encountered observations, and to observations that are inconsistent with the current belief. Our task and analytic approach readily captured both forms of cognitive bias in terms of the evidence weighting profiles shown in Fig.  2c–e : jumping to conclusions in the form of a weaker weighting of evidence appearing late compared to early in the sequence (Fig.  2c ), as captured by our kernel half difference measure; and bias against disconfirmatory evidence in terms of a reduced up-weighting of the evidence associated with high CPP (Fig.  2d ), as captured by the overall magnitude of the CPP modulation kernels. We expected these changes to be expressed in individuals with increased psychosis proneness.

To evaluate the relationship between psychosis proneness and the detailed shapes of the weighting profiles, we first grouped participants into bins (quintiles; N  = 18 per bin) defined by the associated P-scores and focused our comparisons on the two participant subgroups with the lowest and highest P-scores (Fig.  3 ; see also Supplementary Fig.  3 ). The mean scores were 1.08 (95% C.I. = [1.06, 1.11]) for the ‘low P subgroup’ and 1.91 (95% C.I. = [1.84, 1.99]) for the ‘high P subgroup’. The latter corresponds well to the mean P-score obtained in individuals fulfilling the criteria for ultra-high-risk status for psychosis (1.9, 99% C.I. = 1.71–2.02) 52 . We also computed continuous correlations between scalar indicators derived from the kernels (as well as other measures of behavior) and the individual P-scores from the entire sample (Supplemental Figs.  4 and 5 ).

a As Fig.  2c , but now for subgroups of participants occupying the lowest (gray) and highest (black) quintiles of P-scores. b Kernel half-difference summary measure (subtraction of mean weighting of first 5 samples from mean weighting of last 5 samples) capturing degree of recency in evidence weighting, plotted for both lowest and highest P-score quintiles. c As Fig.  2d, e , but now for subgroups occupying lowest and highest P-score quintiles. d Summary measure capturing summed strength of modulations of evidence weighting by CPP (mean modulation weights over sample positions 4–10, significant cluster in Fig.  2d ) and -|ψ | (mean modulation weights over sample positions 3–8, significant cluster in Fig.  2e ), plotted for lowest and highest P-score quintiles. Red shadings, mean +/− s.e.m. of normative model fits. Horizontal greyscale lines in b and d , mean of data from each subgroup; circles, individual participants. P -values, two-sample permutation tests (two-tailed). CI L-H , 95% confidence intervals (bootstrapped) around difference of means between lowest and highest P-score quintile subgroups. n  = 18 participants per subgroup for calculation of means, s.e.m. and statistical tests in all panels.

There was a clear relation between the P-scores and the model-estimated noise parameter (increased noise for high P-scores; Supplementary Fig.  4d, h ), which is consistent with previous observations linking psychosis to similar model parameters estimated from other belief updating tasks (reviewed in ref. 60 ); and mixed evidence for an association with subjective hazard rate \(\hat{H}\) (Supplementary Fig.  4c, f ). Further, participants’ overall behavioral performance – evaluated as accuracy, and consistency of choices with those of the ideal observer, specifically on trials containing at least one change point – was better in the low P subgroup than the high P subgroup (Supplementary Fig.  4a, b ), albeit without a robust effect for the corresponding continuous correlations (Supplementary Fig.  4e, f ). These observations, along with the inferred high-risk status of the well-isolated high P subgroup, motivated our subsequent main focus on the comparison between the two subgroups in our analysis of evidence weighting profiles as well as pupil dynamics.

Importantly, the high P subgroup gave overall less weight to evidence arriving late in the evidence stream, as quantified in terms of the individual sample comparisons (Fig.  3a ; sample position 9: mean group difference = 0.45, 95% C.I. = [0.16, 0.74], P  = 0.005; sample position 10: mean group difference = 1.00, 95% C.I. = [0.29, 1.75], P  = 0.011; two-tailed permutation tests; all other sample positions not significant) as well as the strength of the above-described overall recency effect (i.e., kernel half difference, Fig.  3b ). This same group difference was also significant when normalizing each participant’s kernel to have unit area before computing the kernel half difference (Methods; ref. 49 ) in order to remove any contribution of overall kernel magnitude (mean group difference in normalized kernel half difference = 0.04, 95% C.I. = [0.01, 0.07], P  = 0.013).

Furthermore, the high P subgroup exhibited a generally weaker dynamic component to their belief updating, reflected in smaller combined weights of the CPP and -| ψ | modulations identified above (averaging regression coefficients over largest temporal clusters identified in whole-group analysis, and then summing the averaged coefficients across CPP and -| ψ | modulations; Fig.  3c, d ). The resulting value, which captured the extent to which individuals implemented the dynamic, non-linear evidence accumulation prescribed by the normative model, was significantly different between low and high P subgroups (Fig.  3d ; also marginally significant for CPP alone, Supplementary Fig.  5 ). Similar effects were observed for the kernel half difference, but not for the summed or individual modulation effects, in the continuous correlations across all participants (Supplementary Fig.  5 ).

We note here that the high P subgroup included one individual with a prior diagnosis of psychosis due to substance abuse (P-score = 2.1). However, with the exception of the combined CPP and -| ψ | modulations (Fig.  3d ; P  = 0.1), all effects in Fig.  3 , as well as Figs.  4 and 5 below, remained statistically significant when this individual was excluded.

a Average trial-related pupil response (solid line) and its first derivative (dashed line). Dashed gray vertical lines, sample onsets. b , c Both measures of overall trial-evoked response for the low and high P-score subgroups. d Encoding of change-point probability and uncertainty in pupil responses evoked by individual evidence samples. e Encoding of change-point probability and uncertainty in pupil responses (pooled) for low and high P-score subgroups. Shaded areas in ( a , d ) indicate s.e.m. ( n  = 90 participants). Significance bars in d , p  < 0.05 (two-tailed cluster-based permutation test). Horizontal lines in b , c , e , mean of data from each subgroup ( n  = 18 participants per subgroup); circles, individual participants. P -values, two-sample permutation tests (two-tailed). CI L-H , 95% confidence intervals (bootstrapped) around difference of means between lowest and highest P-score subgroups.

In sum, we found differences in the dynamic, non-linear belief updating process between individuals scoring on the lowest end of the psychosis continuum, and those with scores approximating those of individuals who fulfill established criteria for being at ultra-high risk of developing psychosis 52 . These alterations were in line with a stronger ‘stickiness’ of belief states formed early on during processing of evidence streams in the high P subgroup.

Participants prone to psychosis also have altered pupil dynamics

Previous work has shown that phasic arousal encodes CPP , uncertainty, and related variables and, at least in part, mediates their impact on learning rate and evidence weighting 17 , 19 , 24 , 61 . Our central prediction was that participants prone to psychosis would also have reduced pupil responses to evidence samples associated with high CPP or occurring under high uncertainty. To test this, we isolated phasic arousal responses to individual samples in terms of the first temporal derivative of the pupil diameter signal measured during task performance 17 , 62 (Fig.  4a ). Pupil diameter is as an established proxy for changes in arousal state 29 , 63 . We focused on its first derivative in order to increase temporal precision and specificity for noradrenaline release 32 . We then regressed this rapid response component on single-sample CPP and -IψI estimates in a time-resolved fashion (Methods), without making assumptions about the generator mechanism 64 . This approach revealed robust pupil encoding of both computational variables (Fig.  4d ), again replicating previous findings 17 .

The evoked pupil responses also differed between the high and low P subgroups (Fig.  4b–d ). The overall responses during the trial were reduced in high P individuals, when quantified as either (i) evoked responses in the raw pupil signal and averaged across the trial epoch (Fig.  4b ; marginally significant) or (ii) as the response of the pupil derivative (Fig.  4c ) evaluated in an early time window that contained the largest excursion of the derivative response (Fig.  4a , dashed line). Furthermore, the encoding of belief updating variables in the pupil derivative was less reliable in the high P subgroup (Fig.  4e ; Supplementary Fig.  6 ).

In sum, not only did the high P subgroup exhibit altered belief updating dynamics, but their task-related recruitment of pupil-linked arousal was weaker, both in terms of the overall evoked response and sensitivity to the computational variables that modulate the belief updating computation.

Inference-related pupil dilations predict individual evidence weighting profiles

Given that high and low P subgroups differed in both their above-described behavioral signatures of dynamic evidence weighting (i.e., kernel metrics, Fig.  3b, d ) and the encoding of computational variables from the inference process in their pupil responses (specifically, CPP and uncertainty Fig.  4e ), an obvious question is how the individual differences in these variables related to one another. Indeed, we observed robust correlations between the pupil sensitivity to CPP and uncertainty, and both evidence weighting signatures: the kernel difference (Fig.  5a ) and the (pooled) modulation of evidence weighting by CPP and uncertainty (Fig.  5b ). Weaker relationships to the behavioral evidence weighting measures were present for the overall task-evoked pupil response (magnitude or derivative) across the entire trial (Supplementary Fig.  7a, b ). Taken together, these results show that the individual level of recruitment of pupil-linked arousal by inference-related variables reflected individual differences in dynamic evidence weighting.

Scatterplots show across-participant correlation between encoding of CPP and -|ψ| in sample-related pupil responses (pooled) and the two evidence weighting (kernel) metrics from Fig.  3b, d : specifically, variable encoding in pupil response plotted against ( a ) kernel half-difference and ( b ) summed CPP and -|ψ| modulation weights. Circles, participants ( n  = 90); circle colors, low P subgroup (light gray, filled), high P subgroup (black, filled) and remainder of sample (gray, unfilled). Correlation coefficients and P -values, Spearman correlation. See Supplementary Fig.  7c, d for the correlations evaluated separately for CPP and -|ψ | .

Role of other symptom dimensions and working memory

Our analyses focused on the P-score of the CAPE questionnaire because of the rationale underlying the study. Indeed, the relationships with belief updating profiles and pupil dynamics reported above were specific to the P-score, with no credible evidence for effects for the other two scores measuring negative (N) and depressive (D) symptoms, respectively (Supplementary Fig.  8 ). Bayes factors (BF 10 ) for these analyses were between 0.65 and 0.33, indicating anecdotal to moderate evidence in favor of the null hypothesis of no effect of N- or D-scores on evidence weighting or pupil measures 65 .

Many studies into the pathophysiology of schizophrenia have focused on working memory 66 , 67 , the ability to hold information online for several seconds and manipulate it for the control of behavior 68 , 69 . Deterioration of working memory is consistently associated with schizophrenia 70 , in particular with the negative subdomain 71 , and may provide early cues for the development of the disorder 72 . For these reasons, and to test for the specificity of the effects observed in our belief updating task, we also related the CAPE questionnaire scores to participants’ performance in a classical delayed match-to-sample working memory task (Methods). We observed no credible evidence for associations between working memory task performance and scores on any of the three scales that comprise the CAPE (Supplementary Fig.  9 ; Bayes factors indicated anecdotal evidence in support of the null hypothesis of no effect of P-scores, and moderate evidence for the null hypothesis of no effect of N- or D-scores). This suggests that the relationship between psychosis proneness and decision-making established above is driven by individual differences in the dynamic belief updating process, rather than by a possible contribution of working memory integrity to performance of our decision-making task 73 .

Our work sheds light on the relationship between the computational and physiological bases of dynamic belief updating and latent psychopathology. We found that a community sample of participants approximated the normative, non-linear belief updating strategy for solving our task. Computational variables entailed in this process, change-point probability and uncertainty, were encoded in their pupil responses during task performance. A subset of individuals who were prone to psychosis gave less weight to evidence arriving late in the decision process as well as less weight to evidence associated with large change-point probability or arriving under low uncertainty. These behavioral signatures are diagnostic of a stronger persistence of initially formed belief states at a computational level. Mechanistically, they are consistent with stronger cortical attractor states, in which sensitivity to new evidence is reduced. These behavioral changes in psychosis-prone participants were associated with less precise encoding of change-point probability and uncertainty in pupil responses, consistent with our hypothesized involvement of arousal mechanisms in the aberrations of dynamic belief updating. Together, our results integrate different fields of current psychosis research into a single mechanistic framework.

Assessing the psychosis continuum through questionnaires

Delusions and hallucinations are prominent symptoms of schizophrenia but are also reported by people in the general population in an attenuated form. This has led to the notion of a psychosis continuum 5 ranging from people who report never to have experienced even the mildest type of psychotic experience to those diagnosed with schizophrenia. Located in between these two extremes are various degrees of risk states characterized by subclinical psychotic experiences of varying frequency and intensity. Self-report measures of psychotic experiences, such as the CAPE questionnaire employed here 37 , are commonly used to estimate a person’s position on this continuum, with higher scores indicating higher proneness to psychosis. The CAPE has been extensively validated 34 , 37 , 51 , 52 , 74 and shows good test-retest reliability 37 . The self-reported dimensions of psychosis that it purports to assess are associated with the corresponding interview-based dimensions 37 , 39 . The P-scores that we focused on are suited to screen for psychosis risk 51 , 52 and for clinical psychosis 74 . The 3-dimensional structure is stable across different populations and language versions 34 , 75 . We, therefore, assume that the self-reported dimensions of psychotic experiences assessed here are reliable and valid.

Theoretical foundation of our approach

Our current approach built on recent computational and physiological insights into group average behavior on the same task as used here 17 . This previous work established that (i) participants approximated the normative belief updating strategy for this task, (ii) the underlying belief state was selectively encoded in the slow dynamics of action plans in parietal and frontal cortical regions, (iii) the computation of this belief state emerged from recurrent interactions in local microcircuits equipped with attractor dynamics, and (iv) pupil-linked phasic arousal responses contributed to the dynamic upweighting of evidence samples associated with high change-point probability and uncertainty, a process that was linked to modulation of the evidence encoding in visual cortex.

This prior work also (v) identified diagnostic signatures of the non-linear, dynamic belief updating process in the form of evidence weighting profiles (psychophysical kernels) 17 , which formed the cornerstones of our current behavioral approach. Our findings highlight the importance of the detailed, model-guided quantification of evidence weighting profiles widely used in decision neuroscience 17 , 76 – in particular, the diagnostic CPP and uncertainty modulation kernels that our previous work derived computationally and validated physiologically 17 . These profiles can identify even nuanced and idiosyncratic alterations in the dynamic weighting profiles (see also ref. 77 for an application relating hallucination proneness to weighting of different stimulus features during auditory decision-making), which may not be fully captured by parameter estimates from model fits. Consistent with some previous work (reviewed in ref. 60 ), we found an effect of individual P-scores on decision noise and a weak effect on the subjective hazard rate (dependent on inclusion or exclusion of an outlier). But this combination of parameter effects only partially captured patterns observed in our kernel-derived measures (underestimating particularly the modulation of evidence weighting by CPP). In line with recent insights from a learning task with change-points applied to schizophrenia 78 , this pattern of results indicates that static parameter estimates can fail to capture important deviations in belief updating dynamics. Such deviations are instead well captured by the psychophysical kernels that we here estimated for each individual.

Identifying reasoning biases in psychosis

Our findings are broadly consistent with accounts of aberrant probabilistic reasoning in psychosis that focus on the over-expression of two cognitive biases: jumping to conclusions 10 , 59 and bias against disconfirmatory evidence 58 , 59 . As such, the findings align with cognitive models of delusions that posit these reasoning biases to be a central part of psychotic vulnerability and to account for delusional interpretations of ambiguous stimuli 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 . However, existing accounts of biased probabilistic reasoning are largely based on results from the so-called beads task, in which the participant sequentially draws colored beads from one of two jars associated with different probabilities of one versus the other color, and has to judge which jar they are drawing from 84 , 85 . This task, and the associated behavioral analyses, suffer from interpretational limitations. First, the neural bases of the cognitive computations underlying performance of these tasks is not well understood. Second, inferences about evidence accumulation (and biases thereof) are indirect, through latent model variables or substitute measures of behavioral performance; as such, the dynamics of belief updating are not probed as directly as through analysis of psychophysical kernels. Third, in the classical ‘draws to decision’ version of the beads task 84 , 85 , the participant draws beads from one of two jars with fixed (and already learned) probabilities until committing to a decision about which of the two jars they are drawing from. This version requires the setting of decision bounds to determine how much evidence is accumulated before the participant decides to stop accumulating and make a response. This may conflate biases in evidence accumulation per se with a general proneness to commit to decisions and/or to stop engaging in the task. Fourth, and most fundamentally, the standard tasks that have been used in this literature have lacked hidden state changes, which are an essential feature of natural environments 1 . Indeed, the presence of such hidden state changes is critical for unraveling non-linearities of human belief updating 17 .

Our current approach overcomes the above limitations. We used an evidence accumulation task with hidden change-points, which provided direct access to the dynamics of evidence weighting and the neurophysiological basis of which we have previously characterized in detail. This enabled us to precisely quantify two biases through metrics derived from participants’ psychophysical kernels: (i) Primacy vs. recency in temporal evidence weighting, captured here by the ‘kernel half difference’; and (ii) modulation of evidence weighting by the contextual variables change-point probability (which depends on the inconsistency of a new evidence sample with the current belief state) and, to a weaker extent, uncertainty, captured here as the mean across additional modulatory kernels estimated as part of our analytic approach. Because the number of samples presented on each trial are under the experimenter’s (rather than the participant’s) control, these biases are independent of stopping rules and directly inform about belief updating. Stronger tendency toward primacy in evidence weighting can be interpreted as a stronger tendency toward jumping to conclusions 86 . Likewise, a reduced modulation of evidence weighting by CPP indicates a bias against disconfirmatory evidence. Both effects were present (the latter trending when isolated from the uncertainty modulation, which is not clearly related to the two biases in question) in participants with the highest proneness to psychosis. Finally, and critically, our approach enabled linking the behavioral identification of these biases to specific, inference-driven components of task-evoked pupil responses.

Importantly, we observed some evidence that the relationship between psychosis proneness and biases in dynamic belief updating was a specific effect. Our evidence accumulation task required working memory (for the maintenance of accumulated evidence) 73 , 87 , and schizophrenia is associated with degraded working memory 70 , 71 , 72 , 88 . Yet, we here found anecdotal evidence 65 that P-scores were not related to performance on a standard (delayed match-to-sample) working memory task. Furthermore, the 3-dimensonal structure of the CAPE allowed us to assess whether signatures of dynamic belief updating were related not just to the positive symptoms of psychosis proneness captured by the P-scores, but to self-reported levels of negative and depressive symptoms. Again, we observed anecdotal to moderate evidence against the presence of such relationships. Thus, the relationship between biases in dynamic belief updating and positive symptoms of psychosis proneness could not be explained by either individual differences in working memory integrity, or general effects that also manifest in other symptom dimensions.

Outlines of a mechanistic framework

Our results open a window on the pathomechanisms of psychosis. We observed that the precision of the encoding of CPP and uncertainty in pupil responses, a high-level, cognitive component of the pupil dynamics in our task, was particularly closely related to individual evidence weighting signatures and was also related to delusion proneness. Pupil diameter is as an established proxy for arousal state 29 , 63 , and reflects the activity of ascending neuromodulatory systems such as the locus coeruleus-noradrenergic system 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 . It is tempting to speculate that – in keeping with the opponent interplay between tonic and phasic activity of central arousal systems 25 – the previously established tonic hyper-arousal in psychosis 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 blunts evoked, phasic arousal responses to high-level variables computed in the process of belief updating, specifically CPP and uncertainty. This in turn reduces the dynamic upweighting of internal representations of the momentary evidence observed in sensory cortex 17 , translating into a smaller than required update of the belief state in downstream cortical regions. As a consequence, an individual’s beliefs will become ‘sticky’. Our findings were obtained in an emotionally neutral belief updating task operating on short timescales and unrelated to the common (often social) contents of psychotic beliefs. It is all the more striking that specific computational measures of behavior and arousal response derived from this kind of task context relate to overall psychosis proneness. This suggests that the pathophysiology of psychosis may affect not only high-level (social, emotional) reasoning that dominates delusions, but also inferences about emotionally neutral properties of the sensory environment.

Relationship to predictive coding accounts of psychosis

It is instructive to relate our results to predictive coding accounts of psychosis 4 , 89 , 90 , 91 . Our results are broadly consistent with certain assumptions of these accounts. The reduced pupil encoding of the inconsistency between prior and evidence (as measured by change-point probability) that we observed here in the high-P subgroup suggests an impaired computation of high-level (cognitive) prediction errors, which other work has linked to schizophrenia and delusion severity 92 . Furthermore, it is tempting to relate our observation of stronger stickiness of initially formed beliefs to the notion of overly strong priors about a higher-level context as a source of false beliefs 93 . However, previous psychophysics work points to weak lower-level (perceptual) priors and/or more precise sensory likelihoods in psychosis, manifesting in a lower sensitivity to some visual illusions 94 , 95 . While our task can be described as a visual evidence accumulation task, it is cognitive in nature in the sense that all evidence samples are clearly discernible (clearly above detection threshold) and it requires a highly flexible formation and updating of prior beliefs, different from many perceptual illusions that tap into hardwired sensory priors. This may explain why our results clearly favor accounts of psychosis that emphasize strong priors 94 . Here, we put the focus on the dynamic evolution of belief states during the accumulation of sequentially presented sensory evidence. This enabled us to identify the dynamic interplay between beliefs and evidence as a key aberration in psychosis-proneness.

Limitations

Our work also has limitations. On the one hand, we sampled participants entirely from the general population without current diagnoses of psychosis or related clinical conditions; our multi-session, in-laboratory data collection meant that our sample size was limited, particularly relative to similar work leveraging online data collection (e.g., ref. 96 .); and the behavioral, model-based and pupil differences that we observed even between extremes of the measured part of the P-score continuum were generally small. Future work should assess the degree to which the current findings generalize to individuals with stronger symptoms (e.g., diagnosed ultra-high risk status or full diagnosis of schizophrenia), ideally with a larger sample – and supplement the current approach with direct assessment of baseline arousal levels 13 , 14 to test the hypothesis that tonic hyper-arousal is a mediator of the effects reported here. On the other hand, our strategy for sampling participants involved slight oversampling in the higher half of the P-score distribution (Methods). It is therefore possible that the current sample was biased towards psychopathology, and our findings should be interpreted with this in mind. We emphasize that the sole purpose of our oversampling was to counteract differences between the sample that emerged during data collection and the distribution of P-scores from a larger, and therefore more representative, community sample 34 . It is, therefore, unlikely that our sampling approach introduced a bias toward higher P-scores, or psychopathology more generally. In keeping with this conclusion, the levels of self-reported previous diagnosis of mental health issues in our sample are at the low end of the rates typically found in the general population (e.g., only 4.4% of our participants reported a previous diagnosis of depression).

Conclusions

We found that aberrations in belief updating and arousal dynamics are evident in individuals who have moderate-to-high levels of self-reported psychosis proneness but have not been clinically diagnosed with schizophrenia. We speculate that these aberrations may give rise to psychotic symptoms (i.e., delusions), by increasing the tendency to hold on to erroneous beliefs. They may also serve as a risk marker of psychotic psychopathology. Our computational approach to understanding belief updating behavior and arousal may become a useful tool for future studies into the pathophysiology of psychosis and other mental disorders.

Data availability

Raw behavioral, eye-tracking and questionnaire data used to generate our results, as well as numerical data underlying all main text and Supplementary Figs., are available at the open access repository linked to in ref. 97 ( https://doi.org/10.25592/uhhfdm.14759 ).

Code availability

Analysis code is available without restriction at https://github.com/murphyp7/2024_Murphy_Belief-updating-psychosis-proneness . All code has been tested using Matlab version 2021a.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Emma Krink, Marlene Petersson, and Sonja Monien for strong engagement in data collection. This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) projects DO 1240/4-1, and SFB 936 - Projekt-Nr. A7 (all to THD). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Section Computational Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Peter R. Murphy, Gina Monov, Natalia Kudlek & Tobias H. Donner

Department of Psychology, Maynooth University, Co. Kildare, Ireland

Peter R. Murphy

Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Institute of Psychology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Katarina Krkovic & Tania Lincoln

Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany

Tobias H. Donner

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P.R.M.: conceptualization, methodology, software, formal analysis, visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing; K.K.: conceptualization, methodology, software, writing – review and editing; G.M.: investigation, formal analysis, writing – review and editing; N.K.: investigation; T.L.: conceptualization, methodology, resources, writing – review and editing, supervision; T.H.D.: conceptualization, methodology, resources, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, supervision.

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Murphy, P.R., Krkovic, K., Monov, G. et al. Individual differences in belief updating and phasic arousal are related to psychosis proneness. Commun Psychol 2 , 88 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-024-00140-2

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