Читать книгу Adult Deliberate Firesetting - Theresa A. Gannon - Страница 23

The findings we have presented so far have focused on developmental trajectories or the presence or absence of diagnosable mental health issues in men and women who set fires. In this section, we explore the psychological traits that have been associated with those who engage in firesetting behaviour. We have used the M-TTAF (Gannon et al., 2012) to arrange these psychological traits into four categories reflecting what Gannon and colleagues consider psychological vulnerabilities—inappropriate fire interest or scripts, offence-supportive attitudes, self- or emotion-regulation issues, and communication problems. We also examine self-esteem, which is conceptualised as a moderator within the M-TTAF in that self-esteem may buffer the individual against the impact of their underlying vulnerabilities on firesetting behaviour (Gannon et al., 2012). It is important to acknowledge that these psychological traits may not be independent of the psychopathological and developmental factors already examined. For example, fire interest is the defining feature of pyromania, and aspects of poor self-regulation may typify people with intellectual disability. This is therefore a different lens with which to view the characteristics of this population, which reflects a different level of analysis to the examination of disorders or development (for a discussion of the examination of offending phenomena at different levels of analysis, see Ward, 2014).

Fire interest and fire scripts. Fire interest refers, predictably, to whether individuals experience a marked or inappropriate interest in fire, fire paraphernalia, or other facets surrounding firesetting behaviour (e.g., interest in the emergency service response to fires). It is a core feature of pyromania but alone is not sufficient for a diagnosis of pyromania (see Ó Ciardha et al., 2017). Unsurprisingly, fire interest is consistently associated with firesetting status. Factor analytic research by Ó Ciardha et al. (2015b) suggested that it may be useful to distinguish between an interest in mundane firesetting (e.g., an ordinary fire in a grate) and more serious firesetting (e.g., a hotel fire). They found that this serious firesetting factor distinguished imprisoned men who had set fires from those who had not (for similar findings in a well-matched subset of these data, see Gannon et al., 2013). Similarly, Alleyne et al. (2016) reported data suggesting that imprisoned women who had set fires had greater serious fire interest than imprisoned women who had not set fires. Two studies by Barrowcliffe and Gannon (2015, 2016) did not distinguish fire interest according to its severity yet reported greater fire interest among un-apprehended individuals admitting firesetting compared with the general population. Tyler et al. (2015) demonstrated greater prevalence of expressed fire interest—as recorded in clinical notes—for individuals in a secure mental health setting who had set fires than those who had not.

Recently, Gannon et al. (in preparation), developed a comprehensive self-report tool to examine fire-related interests and attitudes. For a more detailed description of the measure, see Chapter 6. Factor analysis of responses from a large community sample, including individuals admitting deliberate firesetting, allowed the authors to parse fire-related attitudes more finely than earlier studies (e.g., Ó Ciardha et al., 2015b). All eight factors extracted from the measure differentiated between people admitting a history of firesetting and those who did not. Factors labelled as identification with fire, fire interest, pathological fire interest, coping using fire, and fascination with fire paraphernalia appear to reflect facets of fire interest. In a second study, Gannon et al.’s (in preparation) findings suggest that it is the coping using fire and identification with fire facets of fire interest that best differentiate between imprisoned men with and without convictions for firesetting.

Gannon et al. (2012) hypothesised that individuals who set deliberate fires may have developed cognitive scripts that facilitate firesetting (this theory was further developed by Butler & Gannon, 2015). Very little research has empirically tested the scripts of people who have set fires. Using a relatively small sample, Butler and Gannon (2021) found evidence of greater fire-related scripts and expertise among imprisoned men with current or previous firesetting offences compared with community and imprisoned individuals. Interestingly, fire-service personnel were indistinguishable from people who had set fires using Butler and Gannon’s measures of scripts and expertise, and both groups scored similarly on serious fire interest. Gannon et al.’s (in preparation) examination of the structure and correlates of a new measure of fire-related interests and attitudes provides additional evidence regarding firesetting scripts through the identification of coherent factors approximating two of Butler and Gannon (2015) hypothesised scripts: fire is a powerful messenger, and fire is soothing.

Offence-supportive attitudes. Gannon et al. (2012) hypothesised that adults who set deliberate fires would hold attitudes supportive of general offending and/or specific attitudes that would support criminal firesetting. Ó Ciardha and Gannon (2012) expanded on this hypothesis by proposing that people who set fires may have belief systems in the form of implicit theories (see Ward, 2000) that allow them to interact with their social words and process social information in an offence-supportive manner. We know of only one published study that has directly tested these hypotheses. Barrowcliffe et al. (2019) found only partial support for the specific hypotheses of Ó Ciardha and Gannon (2012) with a small sample of un-apprehended individuals (majority female) who had set fires. The findings of Gannon et al. (in preparation) also appear to support the suggestion by Ó Ciardha and Gannon (2012) that the belief that fire is a powerful tool may be characteristic of people who set fires as well as beliefs around how fascinating or exciting fire is.

Self and emotional regulation. The self- or emotion-regulation factors implicated in adult deliberate firesetting by the authors of the M-TTAF (Gannon et al., 2012) include issues with anger, poor coping or emotional expression, poor problem solving, and impulsivity. As mentioned, these factors may reflect clinical features of certain developmental disabilities or psychopathological disorders. However, they are not simply hypothesised as features of broader disorders but also as vulnerability factors in people who set fires in the absence of diagnosed mental ill health. Much of the older research on which these hypotheses were drawn relied on small samples or samples without comparison groups. Few studies have directly explored whether these factors distinguish groups of individuals who have set fires from other justice-involved individuals or the wider community. Gannon et al. (2013) compared imprisoned men with and without firesetting offences on a number of variables, including anger. They found that those with firesetting histories appeared to be characterised by more anger-related cognition (e.g., rumination and hostility) and physiological arousal to anger and had more experiences of anger as a response to perceived provocation. Findings by Alleyne et al. (2016) suggested that apprehended women who had set fires reported being more able to regulate their anger relative to other imprisoned women, although the effect size for this difference was small. Comparing a small sample of women and men who had set fires, Nanayakkara et al. (2020a) reported greater impulsivity and affect dysregulation among the female sample. Impulsivity also differentiated women who had set fires from other women admitted to a secure treatment setting (Long et al., 2015). Taking a different approach, Dalhuisen et al. (2017) examined the evidence for different subgroups of firesetting individuals. They concluded that some clusters of these individuals were characterised by self- or emotion-regulation factors such as coping problems or problems with impulsivity. Finally, Gannon et al. (in preparation) found that self and emotional regulation among people who set fires may be characterised by a reliance on fire as a method of coping or as a means to send a powerful message to others. These factors differentiated apprehended individuals with a history of firesetting from both apprehended and community controls.

Communication problems. Within the M-TTAF (Gannon et al., 2012), communication problems that are thought to act as vulnerabilities for firesetting include social skills issues, emotional loneliness, and low assertiveness. As with other factors, early research implicated these as characteristic of people who set fires (see Gannon & Pina, 2010), but a few more recent studies have demonstrated whether they are uniquely characteristic of this population. Gannon et al. (2013) did not find group differences between imprisoned men who set fires compared with those who did not on either assertiveness or loneliness using self-report measures. Alleyne et al. (2016) found that these social competence measures of loneliness and assertiveness did not differentiate imprisoned women who had set fires from other imprisoned women or from the men who had set fires. In one of few relatively recent studies that examined the social skills of people who have set fires, Hagenauw et al. (2015) reported lower social skills among the small sample of firesetting individuals in their comparison of mixed-gender individuals in a psychiatric institution. In a study that compared men apprehended for arson with men apprehended for violent offences and who were treated in an outpatient treatment centre, Wilpert et al. (2017) found that those apprehended for arson were more socially isolated.

Self-esteem. Self-esteem is conceptualised within the M-TTAF (Gannon et al., 2012; see Chapter 3) as a moderating factor, with intact or high self-esteem potentially protecting individuals against the deleterious effects of other psychological vulnerabilities that would otherwise place them at risk of offending. In this model, low self-esteem may exacerbate these risk factors. The best evidence of this relationship would demonstrate that self-esteem interacts with other risk factors preceding firesetting offending. However, evidence that individuals who engage in firesetting have lower self-esteem than comparison groups would provide partial support for this hypothesis. Two studies have reported significantly lower self-esteem among imprisoned men with a history of firesetting compared with imprisoned individuals (Duggan & Shine, 2001; Gannon et al., 2013). Analyses by Alleyne et al. (2016) has also suggested that while imprisoned women who set deliberate fires had lower self-esteem than men who set fires, they did not differ significantly from other imprisoned women (though see also Stewart, 1993). The possibility that gender may itself impact on a moderating role of self-esteem was suggested by Ducat et al. (2017).

Relative to research on the psychopathological characteristics of individuals who set fires, research on psychological characteristics is less well-developed. There appears to have been a resurgence in this area of investigation following publication of the M-TTAF (Gannon et al., 2012). However, the lack of routinely available national or regional data (c.f., Anwar et al., 2011; Ducat et al., 2013b) on these psychological characteristics impedes the development of robust large-scale examination of these constructs and their potential role in firesetting. Despite this, the cumulative evidence is strongest in implicating fire interest (or facets of fire interest), self- and emotion-regulation problems, and low self-esteem as characteristics of men who have set fires relative to other justice-involved men. Fire interest also appears to consistently differentiate between people who have set deliberate fires and the wider population and between women who set fires and other imprisoned women. Other findings relating to women are less clear and require further research using robust designs. There is growing evidence to consider fire interest as multi-faceted and that firesetting may be underpinned by firesetting-supportive schemas and scripts, but these need further investigation.