Nathan Brooks

• PhD
• Senior Lecturer at Central Queensland University

Motivation is at the heart of understanding the causes and reasons for all human behavior. This article addresses the often elusive, conflated, or overlooked motivational underpinnings of lone actor grievance-fueled violence, referring to acts of demonstrative violence carried out by a single perpetrator, for example, lone actor terrorism, school s...

Research addressing beliefs about deception has been mostly conducted with North American and European participants. However, deception belief consequences are not continent-bound. In legal proceedings, when jurors are responsible for assessing witness credibility, beliefs about deception can distort the outcome of jury trials, which are integral t...

The present study examined distinctions between child (n = 30) and adult (n = 212) sexual homicide offenders (SHOs) in Australia and New Zealand, contributing to the limited international research on the subject. Data, primarily sourced from judges' sentencing comments on AustLII and New Zealand Legal Information Institute, revealed significant dif...

Electroencephalogram (EEG) lie detection is a proposed method of determining criminal culpability, though it is currently unknown how this method will impact juror decisions. The present study investigated the persuasiveness of EEG lie detection with potential Australian jurors. Through a vignette-based experiment, participants ( N = 421) were requ...

In pursuit of public discourse, there is a risk of a simple polarity in thinking, meaning acts of public/mass violence, or those where there is a risk of public violence are categorized as terrorist acts or not. The reliance on categorization, and the pursuit of assigning ideology, diminishes the complexity of factors contributing to these forms of...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the application of psychology to the investigation of cold cases. The paper reviews the development of the discipline of operational psychology and reviews the role of the Behavioural Science Unit in assisting with cold case investigations within New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach: The paper...

Psychopathy is recognized as a paradoxical condition, with psychopathic individuals being devoid of outwardly obvious signs and symptoms of mental disorder, while possessing marked affective, autonomic, and behavioral aberrations. The Corporate Personality Inventory (CPI) and its third-party rated version (the CPI-3R), was designed to assist in the...

To prevent and mitigate fixated and grievance-fuelled violence, law enforcement has moved towards collaborative policing that seeks to identify and gather information for early and timely responses. At the centrepiece of prevention efforts is the reliance on the identification of risk indicators or warning behaviours. These behaviours are often con...

At times psychologists are required to make high stakes decisions, rupturing the therapeutic relationship to prevent harm. In the past decades, an array of cases across New Zealand and Australia have highlighted the serious consequences that can emerge when warning behaviours are missed by practitioners. In most instances, the failure to identify t...

The buyer-supplier relationships (BSRs) literature to date has neglected the implications of individual personality differences amongst the parties to any relationship, thereby ignoring the complex dynamics of human interaction and behaviors on the progress and performance in such relationships. This Notes & Debates paper takes the view that person...

Stalking refers to intrusive acts experienced on two or more occasions (according to most definitions and legislation) which create apprehension and/or fear. Statistically, most victims of stalking are female, and most stalkers are male. Female-perpetrated stalking has been explored less, even though it has a significant effect on victims. Rigid so...

The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) brought with it a new wave of child soldier. This was characterised by media and propaganda circulating of children as young as four being exposed to detonators and rifles, along with perpetrating acts of violence. However, since the dismantling of ISIS, many of these children are now returning...

Profiling aims to identify the major personality and behavioural characteristics of offenders from their interactions in the crime. The discipline has undergone numerous changes and advances since its first modern use by the psychological/psychiatric community. The current paper reviews the different approaches to criminal profiling, exploring the...

Risk assessment and threat management are important components of crime control and crime prevention, with the results of assessments having a significant impact on personal and community safety. There may also be important legal implications arising from these if individuals are deemed to be a risk to others. There is evidence showing that traditi...

Australian Police Journal: Forensic sciences are facing a credibility problem that has rapidly escalated in the last few years. Governmental investigations in the U.S. and the U.K. on the validity of forensic science techniques has led to concern for the state of the discipline (National Research Council, 2009; PCAST, 2016; Science and Technology S...

Much contention and speculation exists regarding the emotional and social skills associated with psychopathic personality, including the idea of a predatory perception. Perpetrators such as Theodore Bundy have made claims to determining victim vulnerability by simple body cues, however, support for these assertions has been limited. The current stu...

This chapter will explore the tendency of psychopathic individuals to deceive others, exploit vulnerability and target victims in pursuit of self-gain, examining the implications of this behaviour in the workplace. The evidence relating to the varied mechanisms that provide psychopaths with the ammunition to coerce, abuse and deceive is presented,...

Psychopathy is prevalent and problematic in criminal populations, but is also found to be present in noncriminal populations. In 1992, Robert Hare declared that psychopaths may also “be found in the boardroom”, which has since been followed by an interest in the issue of noncriminal, or even successful, psychopathy. In this chapter, the paradox of...

The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare in The Hare Psychopathy Checklist—Revised. Mutli-Health Systems, Toronto, ON, 2003) has for many years been the gold standard psychopathy assessment, shaping the understanding of psychopathic personality. While the PCL-R remains a leading measure of psychopathy, some concerns have been raised that the...

The diagnosis of psychopathy in individuals poses a number of challenges for psychologists, psychiatrists, the legal system and society at large. In addition to classifying an individual’s personality disorder, the implications for treatment, legal recourse and remedy may hinge upon effective, reliable and valid diagnosis. This chapter discusses th...

Psychopathy, the dark triad and related personality disorders may have negative consequences within organisations, individuals and society. There may, however, be positive benefits in terms of creativity and reaction to stressful circumstances and extreme environments. The developing body of research is beginning to address some elements of the par...

This book brings together a collection of theoretical and empirical work on psychopathy, and related personality traits, particularly as they manifest in a noncriminal context. There has been a growing body of work over the past two decades which examines psychopathy outside of the realm of criminal populations and this book aims to contribute to t...

This book analyses the conceptualization of psychopathic personality disorder for criminal/forensic populations and examines in depth the emerging phenomenon of the ‘corporate psychopath’. In doing so its authors expose the paradoxical nature of the disorder: while it is frequently associated with antisocial, criminal and predatory behaviour, more...

The clinical construct of psychopathy is defined by a constellation of interpersonal, affective and lifestyle characteristics (Cleckley, 1941; Hare, 1999). Traits associated with psychopathy include: insincerity, pathological lying, egocentricity, unreliability, lack of remorse, and an inability to experience empathy or concern for others (Cleckley...

The term “profiling” (as in “offender profiling”, “criminal profiling”, or “psychological profiling”) was first regularly used by members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Behavioral Science Unit who defined it as the process of drawing inferences about a suspect’s characteristics from details of his or her actions exhibited during the...

The current study investigated the relationships between empathy (emotional and cognitive), emotional intelligence, psychopathy, emotional contagion, and non-conscious behavioural mimicry (smiles and hand scratches), using self-report scales and a script-based interview session exhibiting nine non-verbal gestures, on a student sample. Past findings...

The notion that individuals with psychopathic personality characteristics exist in the corporate world is both a logical extension of the estimated community prevalence rates of the disorder, as well as a scientific hypothesis based on the observation that a number of the characteristics of the disorder could convey an advantage within this context...

Psychopathic personality traits have been identified in research on criminal and noncriminal samples (Hare, 2003; Babiak, Hare, & Neumann, 2010). A large body of research exists on criminal psychopathy; however, limited empirical understanding has emerged for noncriminal psychopathy. It is unknown whether the empirical knowledge on criminal psychop...

In recent years there has been a substantial increase in publications on the topic of the so-called corporate psychopath, and a number of theories have been proposed to account for these higher functioning manifestations of psychopathy. It is acknowledged that psychopathy is most commonly found in criminal, rather than community samples, with estim...

The notion that individuals with psychopathic personality characteristics exist in the corporate world is both a logical extension of the estimated community prevalence rates of the disorder, as well as a scientific hypothesis based on the observation that a number of the characteristics of the disorder 9.1 Introduction 139 9.2 Aim 143 9.3 Method 1...

The last in the profiling section, looks at the future of profiling and what can still be done to make the field more valid (measuring what it claims to measure) and reliable (being able to measure consistently across time and situations). This chapter looks specifically at research, ethics, accountability, and education and training. For example,...

It has become commonplace for courts to supervise an offender as part of the sentencing process. Many of them have Anti Social Personality Disorder (ASPD). The focus of this article is how the work of specialist and/or problem solving courts can be informed by the insights of the psychology profession into the best practice in the treatment and man...

Psychopathy has long been identified as a central personality correlate of criminal and violent behaviour yet remains relatively unexplored in Australia. The present study utilised the recently developed Self-Report Psychopathy Scale – III (SRP-III) with an Australian community sample (N = 327). As expected, males reported higher levels of psychopa...