Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Jacquin, Kristine

Committee Member

Sheperis, Carl

Committee Member

Armstrong, Kevin

Date of Degree

8-9-2008

Original embargo terms

MSU Only Indefinitely

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Campus Access Only

Major

Psychology (Clinical)

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Psychology

Abstract

This study compared the accuracy for the two general approaches to criminal profiling, inductive and deductive. Participants were 213 college students who participated in a 1-hour training session. Participants in the experimental groups were trained in either the inductive or deductive approach to profiling. Participants in the control group were trained in a crime topic unrelated to profiling (rape and sexual assault prevention). Following the training session, participants were asked to review a double sexual homicide case and then profile the offender by completing the Profiling Offender characteristics Questionnaire. Participants trained in the inductive profiling approach were more accurate when profiling the offender’s physical characteristics. Furthermore, the inductive profiling approach led to higher overall accuracy scores compared to the control condition. These results suggest that training naïve profilers to use the inductive approach may improve the accuracy of offender profiles in sexual homicide cases.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/16315

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