Case Studies

I am continuing to look at the dissertation by Amanda Vicary. This time I will look at two different studies that she conducted; analyzing each of them and the different methods used.

Note: This was not the picture used in the study.
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Case #1

This study was done to  investigate whether women find fame attraction in killers and whether women with certain personality characteristics are more likely to find killers attractive.

This study looked into the idea that women are attracted to fame. 

Vicary's study looked into characteristics based on her hypothesis, that an insecure attachment orientation, low self-esteem, and high sensation seeking will correlate with women’s attraction to murderers.

•  Participants were 241 female undergraduates
• Completed several questionnaires
• Relationship Structures (ECR-RS) questionnaire
• Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale 
•  11-item Sensation Seeking scale of the ZuckermanKuhlman Personality Questionnaire
•  Basic demographics questionnaire
•  After completing these measures, participants viewed one of two short videos on the computer. The videos appeared to be from a news broadcast. 
• They both featured the same individual (a male in his late 20’s) starring as the serial killer. During the video, a “newscaster” described the man as having murdered two women on different occasions. 
• In one condition (the “fame” condition) the broadcaster also made note that the killer made headlines around the country and had been the focus of three true crime books and one made-for-TV movie. The other video did not include this information.
• The killer’s mug shot was shown an equal number of times in each video.

After this, the participant filled out a questionnaire with several questions. One of the questions was:

"2. How interested would you be in writing to this person while he is in prison?" 

The participants were also asked to rate on a scale of 1-7 how famous they found the killer. After they were told that the individual was not an actual serial killer and that the crime was fictional.

Results were not clear. There were no differences in ratings of attraction between women who viewed the famous video versus the control video. However, there was a correlation with the women who considered the killer to be more famous found him more attractive. Also, women who were higher in sensation seeking and attachment avoidance with their fathers found the killer more attractive.

 Lastly, it was not the case that women higher in certain personality characteristics were more or less likely to find the famous killer attractive. However, women who suffered more abuse as a child found the killer more attractive.

- I was surprised that their wasn't a proven correlation between a women thinking the killer was famous and their attraction. Fame is thought to be a factor in why many women are attracted to killers, as I I have found in my research. This proved all the other experts to be wrong. But I am sure that if the sample size was as big as the world population and had a wide variety of all the different types of people, the results might be different.

I found it to be strange that the women who stated they had been abused as a child found the killer more attractive. One would think that the woman would be repulsed by his violence, but it is the opposite. A possible explanation for this could be that they are used to it or "expect" it. So they do not know any different. Whereas a woman who did not have an abusive past knows to stay away.- But I would think that she might not be as afraid, because she has not experienced it in the past, so she would be more likely to find him attractive. Very interesting!


As I have previously stated, this source has invented ethos and gains even more credibility for conducting case study's.

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/26208/Vicary_Amanda.pdf?sequence=1