Lec 18 Malingering

2 kinds of faking

1. By the tester: cold reading
2. By the subject

Blind analysis

Interpreting a test without ever having seen the patient

Some claim to be skilled at this for the Rorschach

Cold reading? What techniques does it use?

Art of reader getting info from a person they don’t know they are giving, and give the impression reader knows more than they actually do

Makes use of probability knowledge like base rates, and many other techniques

Subject selection: shotgunnning

Shotgunning- using vagueness to scatter possibilities over whole crowd for opening statements, which lets mentalist see who in the crowd responds most often/enthusiastically

Barnum statements

Used to seem increasingly correct, by saying vague common things like :

“I see that some here has recently had a disagreement with someone close to them”

Double shot

Mentalist begins by making a very specific claim

If right, scores a point in subject’s eyes

If wrong, they can make it more and more vague until it is right, and score the point anyway

Ex. “Think! When you were a little girl. I see worried parents, and doctors, and scurrying about” → “I cannot remember for certain. Maybe you are right.”

Emotional manipulation

Makes the hit more potent by adding in emotional component

Ex. “I sense a wronged woman from your past who wants you to know she forgives you”

Questioning technique

By using questions, a cold reader can draw the mark into revealing more information, which can then be used to sharpen the focus

 “Have you recently been thinking about a dead loved one?” → “I have! My mother died last year and I think about her every day.” (got some good info, which narrows base rate focus)

Unfalsifiable statements

Statements that allow one to be correct under multiple, especially contradictory, ways

Ex. saying a great nation would be destroyed if Croesus attacked, but didnt say which nation (was his)

Demand characteristics seen in cold reading

Most participants want to ‘be good’ and do what is asked of them without embarrassing themselves, so in their best interest to help reader

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Cold readers who are reading  (a palm, a Rorschach, a crystal ball) often ‘notice’ evidence of a characteristic after they learn of it

Ex. “Ah, yes, the diagnosis isn’t surprising to me. In fact, we see indications of schizophrenia here and here….”

The push

Psychic begins by making a specific (random and probably wrong) claim and then hones it to a correct claim using feedback from the client

Ex. “I see a grandchild, a very sick grandchild, perhaps a premature baby. Has one of your grandchildren recently been very sick? → “My sister’s daughter had a premature girl several years ago.” → “That’s it. Many days in the hospital? Intensive Care? Oxygen?” (like obviously… thats what ICU is) → microbarnums

What are some reliable indicators of lying?

Giving too much detail

Response latency or length

Speech errors

Voice pitch

Eye contact

Blink rate

Smiling

Postural shifts

Mouth mvmt

Shrugging

Gesturing

How do subjects sometimes “cut slack on the truth”?

Cold readers know that something that resembles the truth will be accepted as closer to the truth that it is

Subject remembers the bits that seen to connect and forget to inconsistent ones

Ex. father’s bday august, glasses example

Muscle reading

Involuntary muscle movements can be detected that can be used to gauge the reaction to any statement or question

Why do people lie?

Social desirability

Faking bad for attention, malingering, money. responsibility avoidance

Acquiescence or opposition → dont want to contradict therapist

Careless

Defensive

Disorders

4 ways to detect liars

1. Have a measure of response bias built into test (ex. MMPI lie scale)
2. Detect behavioural clues of faking
3. Administer measures of faking/response bias
4. Conduct experiments to see what faking looks like so you can detect it (ex. asking ppl to fake bad and look at score diff )

Which lie scale is best for detecting malingering?

MMPI F scale, Lees-Haley

Detailed symptom enquiry

Idea that most malingerers do not know the subtle aspects of the phenomenology of psychiatric symptoms

 Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM)

Recognition memory test created specifically to detect malingering

50 common objects are presented, followed by a binary forced-choice recognition test 

Asked: “Did you see this item before in this test?

Differences in scores for  Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM)?

\
Avg= 49

Subjects with traumatic brain injury= 47.5

Fakers= 30

Scores < 45 (trial 2) correctly identified 95% of normals and TBI patients pretending to be malingerers)

Victoria Symptom Validity Test (VSVT)

Subjects see a 5-digit number and after delay see 2 digits and have to say which one they saw

RTs are taken

Differences in scores for the Victoria Symptom Validity Test (VSVT)?

Fakers tend to perform much worse than brain injured subjects