Foundations of Psychological Profiling - Terrorism, Espionage, and Deception

Profiling is a hot topic today. The post-9/11 War on Terrorism has engendered political, ethical, and scientific controversy over its use. The proliferation of recent films, television programs, and books is a sociocultural indicator of widespread interest. Designed for a diverse audience—including law enforcement officers, intelligence and security officers, attorneys, and researchers—Foundations of Psychological Profiling: Terrorism, Espionage, and Deception presents scientific theory and data on the notion of profiles, integrating essential interdisciplinary knowledge related to the practice and applications of profiling that is rarely found in books on the subject.

Exploring the related fields of historiography, hermeneutics, epistemology, and narratology, the book:

Examines the definitions, history, and politics of profiling

Explains how valid profiling can confront challenges such as the suitability of common scientific methods for the behavioral sciences

Discusses how schematics allow profilers to best ask and answer the right questions when attempting to predict what might happen, identify what is or has already happened, and understand and influence any related events

Describes various psychological events within, or exhibited by, profilers impacting the five desired endpoints of profiling

Presents the theories, constructs, and illustrations related to two crucial tasks: (1) creating a representation of how events relate to each other and to events of interest, and (2) creating a narrative based on that matrix

Demonstrates applications in profiling related to terrorism, espionage, and deception

When conducted successfully, profiling can immensely benefit intelligence, security, and law enforcement professionals to help unearth behaviors, clues, and triggers to when, why, and how someone with bad intent may act on that intent. The book examines this phenomenon and concludes with the authors speculation on how developments in scientific method and statistical procedures—as well as the integration of interdisciplinary sources, politics, and the cyberworld—may impact the future of profiling.


Contents

What Is Profiling?

Definitions of Profiling

Histories of Profiling

From Classical Multicultural Texts

From Lexical History: Usages of the English Term Profile as a Verb

Contemporary Scientific History of Profiling

Politics of Profiling

Challenges of Profiling: Validity and Its Estimation

Research Studies

Social Deviancy

Lessons From Literary Criticism and Hermeneutics

Challenges of Profiling: What Is Being Profiled?

Languages of Profiling

Psychodynamic Language

Conditioning Languages

Trait Languages

Physical Languages

Existential and Humanistic Languages

Profiling Schematics

The Cyberworld and Psychology

Challenges of Profiling: Who Is Doing the Profiling?

Basic Epistemology

Faith

Authority

Intuition

Logic

Empiricism

Experimentalism

Logical Fallacies

Argumentation

Social Cognition and Uncertainty

Statistical Issues

Signal Detection Theory (SDT)

Bayesian Analysis

Binomial Effect Size Display

Logistic Regression

Effect Size and Structural Equation Modeling

Deception Analysis

Close Reading Through Interdisciplinary Sources

Profilers and Politics

The Profiling Matrix

The Profiling Narrative

Profiling Applications: Terrorism

Profiling Applications: Espionage

Profiling Applications: Deception

The Future of Profiling

References

Appendix: Matching of Learning Outcomes with Film Fragments

Index