Vernon L Quinsey

Queen's University | QueensU · Department of Psychology

A genealogical investigation.

Assessing an offender's risk to re‐offend is one of the most ubiquitous tasks in the criminal justice and forensic psychiatric systems. This chapter defines actuarial risk assessment and provides a summary of one of the most frequently used actuarial risk scales for predicting violent recidivism, including the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG) a...

We developed a set of risk ratios for the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide—Revised (VRAG-R) to broaden the range of risk communication options available when using this tool and to provide information needed for future efforts to apply The Council of State Governments Justice Center’s standardized five-level risk framework to the scale. A slightly red...

Actuarial prediction of violent and/or sexual recidivism.

http://www.sexual-offender-treatment.org/182.html

The VRAG-R is designed to assess the likelihood of violent or sexual reoffending among male offenders. The data set comprises demographic, criminal history, psychological assessment, and psychiatric information about the offenders gathered from institutional files together with post-release recidivism information. The VRAG-R is a twelve-item actuar...

Three studies examined Jones’ (Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9, 445-451, 2014) suggestion that psychopathic individuals use mimicry to avoid detection. In study 1, student, community, and offender participants posed fearful facial expressions while looking at a prototypical fear face. Expressions were coded for facial movements associated...

[From the cover]. “It is no exaggeration to say that Violent Offenders is the most important book on violent risk assessment since Paul Meehl’s Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction appeared over 60 years ago. This new edition, like its predecessors, is the product of an unparalleled professional collaboration, one characterized by a clear-eyed un...

Abstract The author traces his family history back four generations. His sixteen great-great grandparents and their descendants comprise intertwining Palatine Irish, Hebridean, Cree, Scots-Cree (Gaelind) Metis, English, and County Wexford Protestant Irish threads. This history illustrates the conflicting and often destructive legacies of coloniali...

In this article, I discuss the question of the pathological nature of various sexual orientations and paraphilias and provide arguments for and against the inclusion of various paraphilias in future versions of the DSM. Practically, it is proposed that most of the paraphilias can be usefully conceptualized as involving sexual behaviors directed tow...

The relatively high prevalence and recidivism rates of offenders with intellectual disabilities suggest research on appraising their risk is an important priority. Although research has found good predictive accuracy of available risk assess-ments with intellectually disabled (ID) offenders, we recommend several ways to improve on them: understandi...

Nonoffenders, non-fraud offenders, and fraud offenders of both sexes (N=170) rated the seriousness of a wide variety of crimes and immoral acts using a magnitude estimation task, estimated their societal prevalence, and completed a revised version of the Neutralization Scale (Shields & Whitehall, 1982). As predicted, participants in all six groups...

[Clin Psychol Sci Prac 17: 82–89, 2010] Recently, in the journal Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, there appeared a systematic review (Blair, Marcus, & Boccaccini, 2008) accompanied by a commentary (Lilienfeld & Jones, 2008) suggesting an “allegiance effect” in the reporting of the predictive accuracy of actuarial risk assessment systems....

Accompanied by a commentary (Lilienfeld & Jones, 2008) suggesting an ''allegiance effect'' in the reporting of the predictive accuracy of actuarial risk assessment systems. The authors of these two articles suggested that some possible errors or misrepresentation on the part of original developers or other researchers and proposed some remedies. We...

Sexual coercion is a manifestation of sexual conflict that is not in itself pathological according to Wakefield's (1992) criteria because sexual coercion can increase a man's Darwinian fitness. There are, however, differences among men in their propensity to commit rape and this propensity is linked to antisocial personality characteristics and rel...

Evolutionary theory has informed the investigation of male sexual coercion but has seldom been applied to the analysis of sexual coercion within established couples. The cuckoldry risk hypothesis, that sexual coercion is a male tactic used to reduce the risk of extrapair paternity, was tested in two studies. In a community sample, indirect cues of...

Lalumière, Harris, Quinsey, and Rice (2005) proposed a three-path model (psychopathy, young male syndrome, and competitive disadvantage) of the development of sexually coercive behavior, but none of these individual difference characteristics have been tested among partner rapists. Using a community sample in Study 1, the authors find that psychopa...

Progress in forensic psychology has been rapid in some areas and nonexistent in others. By contrasting technological and conceptual scientific progress in three areas--the legal disposition of mentally ill offenders, risk appraisal, and theories of individual differences in antisocial behaviour--I attempt to identify some determinants of progress....

Comments on the article, The utility of the random controlled trial for evaluating sexual offender treatment: The gold standard or an inappropriate strategy? by W. L. Marshall and L. E. Marshall (2007). The authors argued that randomized clinical trials (RCTs) are not necessary in the evaluation of sex offender treatment, suggesting that the "RCT...

We investigated variations in gait between women at high and at low conception probability, and how men rated those variations. Women participated in a motion capture study where we recorded the kinematics of their walking patterns. Women who were not using hormonal contraception (n = 19) repeated the study during the late follicular stage and the...

Although there are measures of sexual interest and sexual conflict in romantic relationships, none discriminate between sexual coaxing and sexual coercion or are sensitive to proximal changes in the propensity to use such strategies. In order to study these changes, we developed the Tactics to Obtain Sex Scale (TOSS) to assess self-reported likelih...

A life devoted to the study of antisocial behavior and anomalous sexual preferences is examined. Although successive ontogenetic intellectual metamorphoses have yielded theoretical and applied progress, future reincarnations will be necessary for the achievement of full enlightenment.

Hart et al [1][1] argued that actuarial risk assessments (Violence Risk Appraisal Guide, VRAG, and Static-99) are `virtually meaningless'. They committed statistical error by misapplying confidence intervals (see or <http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/eletters/

Strategic pluralism suggests that women engage in short-term sexual relationships when the benefits to doing so outweigh the costs. We investigated attraction to indicators of good genes (namely, masculinity as demonstrated by point-light walkers) in women varying in menstrual cycle status and sociosexual orientation. When women are fertile, they h...

We investigated variations in gait between women at high and at low conception probability, and how men rated those variations. Women participated in a motion capture study where we recorded the kinematics of their walking patterns. Women who were not using hormonal contraception (n = 19) repeated the study during the late follicular stage and the...

Child facial cues are known to influence adults' perceptions, attributions, and parental care behaviors. But how does the influence of these cues change with age? There are three competing theories regarding the influence of age on child facial cues: younger cues have the strongest influence, older cues have the strongest influence, and age cues do...

The relationship between psychopathic traits and the perception of nonverbal communication, including facial expressions and body language, is investigated. Participants include 59 prison inmates and 60 community members. Psychopathic traits among inmates are measured using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) and Levenson's Self Report Psycho...

Sexual behavior is closely associated with delinquency and crime. Although psychopaths, by definition, have many short-term sexual relationships, it has not been shown that sexuality is a core aspect of psychopathy. A Darwinian view of psychopathy led to the hypothesis that psychopaths have a unique sexuality involving early, frequent, and coercive...

Evolutionary theory predicts that men should be more concerned with issues of false paternity than women should be concerned with false maternity. In an earlier study (Volk and Quinsey, 2002), we studied how infant cues of resemblance influenced adults' hypothetical adoption decisions. We found that self-perceived cues of resemblance were significa...

Evolutionary theory predicts that men should be more concerned with issues of false paternity than women should be concerned with false maternity. In an earlier study (Volk and Quinsey, 2002), we studied how infant cues of resemblance influenced adults' hypothetical adoption decisions. We found that self-perceived cues of resemblance were significa...

Staff ratings of 595 supervised forensic psychiatric patients on the Proximal Risk Factor Scale and the Problem Identification Checklist were completed monthly for an average of 33 months. During the follow-up, there were 265 incidents, 86 of which were violent. The average ratings, excluding those from the index month, differentiated patients who...

This study evaluated a method of preventing sexual preference faking in phallometric assessments employing audiotaped stimuli. The stimuli were stories describing neutral heterosocial interactions, consenting heterosexual activity, rape, and nonsexual violence. Sixteen normal heterosexual males were each tested with ordinary instructions, with fake...

Sociosexual orientation reflects individual differences in openness to short-term sexual relationships. We predicted that women with less restricted sociosexuality would be differentially attracted to highly masculinized male faces and bodies. In 2 studies, we investigated preference for male masculinization as a function of female sociosexuality....

Silk et al. report that adult chimpanzees show no difference in their choices in a situation where one choice benefits a familiar conspecific and the other does not. From this, they conclude that chimpanzees are indifferent to the welfare of unrelated group members. But without additional data confirming that chimpanzees do choose differently in ci...

Infant and child facial cues influence perceptions and ratings in the Hypothetical Adoption Paradigm as well as actual parental care. A previous study demonstrated that infant and child facial cues of low body weight negatively influenced adults' ratings. The current study sought to replicate and expand on those results by presenting adults with no...

The purpose of this paper is to address and contest the issues brought forth by Archer et al. (2005) with regard to our original meta-analysis on the relationship between testosterone and aggression [Book, A. S., Starzyk, K. B., & Quinsey, V. L., (2001). The relationship between testosterone and aggression: A meta-analysis. Aggression and Violent B...

Infant and child facial cues have been shown to influence decisions and perceptions associated with parental care in adults. Low body weight reflects health problems in infants and children; therefore, facial cues associated with low body weight may influence adult cognitive processes associated with parental care and investment. Facial images of i...

Reviews the book, The Causes of Rape: Understanding Individual Differences in Male Propensity for Sexual Aggression by Martin L. Lalumière, Grant T. Harris, Vernon L. Quinsey and Marnie E. Rice (see record 2005-00308-000). This text presents an evolutionary explanation for rape, closely related to the writings of people like Wilson and Ellis, with...

In this chapter, we examine forceful male copulatory behavior in many different species. In keeping with the focus on individual differences, our main goal is to uncover the reasons why some males and not others (within a species) engage in this behavior. This chapter is divided into four sections. We first define the term forced copulation and con...

Recent research has demonstrated that ovulation in women may be better described as unadvertised instead of concealed. If others could ascertain cues that a woman is fertile, their behavior toward that woman may change. We investigated what differences, ifany, exist between women who are fertile and women who are not. In this experiment, women not...

Background There is frequently great concern about the dangerousness of deinstitutionalized men with intellectual disabilities who have been institutionalized because they are considered to be at high risk for the commission of serious antisocial acts or sexual offending. Unfortunately, there is little information on whether changes in the behaviou...

This chapter contains section titled:

This book presents an integrated theoretical perspective on antisocial behavior for readers who are seeking a more thorough understanding of juvenile delinquency. The authors have integrated what they have learned from recent empirical and conceptual advances in evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics, and developmental psychology--three field...

Infant facial characteristics may affect discriminative parental solicitude because they convey information about the health of the offspring. We examined the effect of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) infant facial characteristics on hypothetical adoption preferences, ratings of attractiveness, and ratings of health. As expected, potential parents wer...

From a life history perspective, psychopaths can be thought to pursue both social cheating and warrior-hawk strategies. The Cheater Hypothesis suggests that psychopaths would exhibit more indignation, and less empathy and altruism than nonpsychopaths. According to the Warrior-Hawk Hypothesis, psychopaths should also be more aggressive. Questionnair...

Four actuarial instruments for the prediction of violent and sexual reoffending (the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide [VRAG], Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide [SORAG], Rapid Risk Assessment for Sex Offender Recidivism [RRASOR] and Static-99) were evaluated in 4 samples of sex offenders (N = 396). Although all 4 instruments predicted violent (includin...

People discover rather than choose their sexual interests. The process of discovery typically begins before the onset of puberty and is associated with an increase in the secretion of sex hormones from the adrenal glands. However, the determinants of the direction of sexual interest, in the sense of preferences for the same or opposite sex, are ear...

In this chapter we examine whether rapists are sexually aroused by coercive, nonconsensual sex. This question is theoretically important because it speaks to a potential sexual motivation underlying rape. It is also clinically important in that it may reveal an important assessment and treatment target. We first revisit and update quantitative revi...

Trivers's theory of parental investment suggests that adults should decide whether or not to invest in a given infant using a cost-benefit analysis. To make the best investment decision, adults should seek as much relevant information as possible. Infant facial cues may serve to provide information and evoke feelings of parental care in adults. Fou...

Purpose of review: Public concern about violence by the mentally ill means that mental health professionals are increasingly called upon to assess the risk of violence in a wide range of client populations. The past year, like the previous few, has seen an increase in the number of articles on the topic. Recent findings: The evidence favouring actu...

Purpose of review Public concern about violence by the mentally ill means that mental health professionals are increasingly called upon to assess the risk of violence in a wide range of client populations. The past year, like the previous few, has seen an increase in the number of articles on the topic. Recent findings The evidence favouring actuar...

The accuracy of 10 risk measures in predicting general and violent recidivism among 106 federally sentenced male offenders was compared. During an average period of opportunity to reoffend of 713 days (SD = 601.38), 28 offenders recidivated nonviolently, and 34 recidivated violently. Common language effect sizes in discriminating violent recidivist...

This meta-analytic review examined the effectiveness of psychological treatment for sex offenders by summarizing data from 43 studies (combined n = 9,454). Averaged across all studies, the sexual offence recidivism rate was lower for the treatment groups (12.3%) than the comparison groups (16.8%, 38 studies, unweighted average). A similar pattern w...

Trivers’s theory of parental investment suggests that adults should decide whether or not to invest in a given infant using a cost-benefit analysis. To make the best investment decision, adults should seek as much relevant information as possible. Infant facial cues may serve to provide information and evoke feelings of parental care in adults. Fou...

Early starting, lifetime criminal persistence has been called sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder, and psychopathy. There is, however, disagreement about its core features and which measure is best for identifying such individuals. In the 1st of 2 studies of male offenders (n = 74), we found a large association between scores on the Psychop...

This meta-analytic review examined the effectiveness of psychological treatment for sex offenders by summarizing data from 43 studies (combined n = 9,454). Averaged across all studies, the sexual offence recidivism rate was lower for the treatment groups (12.3%) than the comparison groups (16.8%, 38 studies, un-weighted average). A similar pattern...

This meta-analytic review examined the effectiveness of psychological treatment for sex offenders by summarizing data from 43 studies (combined n = 9,454). Averaged across all studies, the sexual offence recidivism rate was lower for the treatment groups (12.3%) than the comparison groups (16.8%, 38 studies, un-weighted average). A similar pattern...

Early starting, lifetime criminal persistence has been called sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder, and psychopathy. There is, however, disagreement about its core features and which measure is best for identifying such individuals. In the 1st of 2 studies of male offenders (n = 74), we found a large association between scores on the Psychop...

Purpose. To provide an introduction to evolutionary psychology by describing some of its applications in the literature on the psychology of criminal and antisocial behaviour. Argument. Selectionist thinking is applied to five areas: the relationship of age and sex to crime, the inverse correlation between degree of kinship and homicide, paedophili...

In non-human animals, the relationship between testosterone and aggression is well established. In humans, the relationship is more controversial. To clarify the relationship, Archer conducted three meta-analyses and found a weak, positive relationship between testosterone and aggression. Unfortunately, each of the analyses included only five to si...

Male undergraduates and men from the local community completed questionnaires dealing with antisocial behavior, aggression, mating effort, and self-esteem. An exploratory maximum likelihood factor analysis revealed three factors, labeled Aggressiveness, Mating Success, and Antisociality. No clear mating effort factor emerged. Number of sexual partn...

It has recently been argued from studies of adults that chronically antisocial offenders constitute a discrete class of individuals. If this is true, it is likely that the class can be identified in childhood. Taxometric analyses were applied to items assessing antisociality in children. These items were similar in content to several established me...