Citation

Reynolds JJ, McCrea SM. Psychiatry Psychol. Law. 2017; 24(4): 605-627.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Law, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13218719.2016.1259540

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Although homicide remains an important topic of research, the majority of the research has focused on homicidal behavior and not homicide thoughts. Yet research into homicidal thoughts provides valuable insights into issues such as premeditation. In three experiments, we instructed participants to imagine different scenarios describing a situation where homicide and violence actually take place, but that do not contain violence or homicidal actions. We used both explicit and implicit methods to measure homicide and violent ideation. The evidence from these experiments indicates that when people imagine homicide scenarios, they think about violence at a substantial rate, but rarely consider homicide. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

homicide adaptation theory; homicide fantasy; violent ideation