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Behaviours occur across complex, dynamic timelines. Research methods to analyse these complex timelines have repeatedly used behaviour sequence analysis (BSA) as a primary method. Traditional BSA outputs, however, are limited in that they do not show how prevalent a behaviour sequence is throughout a sample or group. Until now, how many people in a sample showed the sequence was not analysed and reported. This paper aims to provide a new metric to calculate prevalence scores in BSA data sets.

Open access recorded responses including nonverbal communication of deceptive and truthful individuals were analysed initially with a standard BSA approach and then the prevalence scores of transitions were calculated.

Prevalence scores offered new insights into the distribution of sequences across groups. The prevalence score showed differences in which transitions were seen across the truthful and guilty samples. This offers new approaches to analysing nonverbal communication.

This is the first paper to provide a prevalence score for BSA research and show how it can be used in applied research. The current prevalence score metric is provided and suggested for all future research into sequences.

Paedophilic individuals are a highly misunderstood and stigmatised group, with the general public tending to equate paedophilia with child sexual abuse. Given that paedophilia is often conflated as a psychiatric/mental health disorder and an extreme violent offence, the current study examined whether the stigma towards paedophilic individuals is related to negative associations with severe mental illness and extreme violence. The authors also used the terror management theory (TMT) to provide further insights into why paedophilia is so highly stigmatised.

A sample of 126 participants was split into one of six conditions and provided punitive and moral character judgements, as well as salience of death thoughts. Conditions were divided into three main stigma conditions (paedophilia vs schizophrenia vs homicidal ideation), which were further divided into two conditions (offending vs non-offending).

Results showed that judgements were harsher in the offending conditions than the non-offending conditions. Results also showed that the stigmatisation of paedophilic and schizophrenic individuals may be mediated by terror management processes. These findings suggest that paedophilia is believed to be associated with severe forms of mental illness where an individual is not able to control their own state of mind.

Thus, addressing perceptions of dangerousness towards individuals with severe mental illness is a crucial step towards developing effective strategies to help reduce such stigma.

As one of the first studies to use TMT in this way, the current study provided much-needed insight into an important and under-researched area using available methods for such a sensitive topic.

The purpose of this study is to compare violent and non-violent extremists in terms of their age when they first perpetrate an extremist act, and to understand how this relates to other factors underlying extremist behaviours. While the end goal of many extremists may be functionally similar, the pathways into extremism vary, and the literature has demonstrated that a “one-size-fits-all” explanation does not exist. Motivational drivers are complex and dynamic; therefore, attempting to identify a terrorist “profile” has limited applied efficacy.

This study applied a temporal approach (“crime script analysis” or CSA) to identify, map and compare the sequential stages (or “scenes”) in the life histories of violent and non-violent extremists who have committed acts of extremism across different age groups. Crime scripts comprising mainly qualitative data for 40 male extremists (20 violent, 20 non-violent “cases”) were developed, and CSA was conducted according to the age at which they committed their first extremist offence.

Results demonstrated key temporal, developmental differences between the pathways of extremists who commit their first offence at different ages. One key difference was that for both the violent and non-violent extremists, those under 30 used the internet as a main means of joining networks and spreading information, whereas the over 30s made more personal, community links.

This research can aid identification of potential environmental triggers and potential increased susceptibility to triggers across certain age groups.