Missing Behaviour: The Development of a
Missing Proclivity Scale
Claire Taylor, Dr Penny Woolnough & Professor Geoff Dickens
abertay.ac.uk
Today’s Presentation
• 4 separate questionnaires
1.
2.
3.
4.
Proclivity Test
Attribution Test
Behaviour Interest Scale
Barratt’s Impulsivity Scale
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What is Proclivity?
• A tendency to choose or do something regularly; a natural inclination or
predisposition towards a particular thing.
• You can have a proclivity for anything including certain types of food,
sports, music genre…
• Various different proclivity scales now exist including animal abuse, rape
and sexual harassment.
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Firesetting Proclivity
• Designed by Gannon & Barrowcliffe (2012) and is the main influence for
the missing proclivity scale.
• Their aim was to assess antisocial behaviours, fire interest and
inclination towards setting fires.
• 158 participants (11% reported deliberately setting fires)
• Results found that fire setters scored significantly higher than non-fire
setters on both the fire interest (p = .004) and fire proclivity scales (p
<.001) than non-fire setters.
• Significant differences were found on indices related to fire fascination,
behaviour propensity and fire arousal.
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Aims of Missing Proclivity
• In the UK, around 300,000 people are reported to the police as missing
on an annual basis, this number is similar to the number of fires
attended to each year.
• It is believed that over 38% of all cases involve an individual who has
previously gone missing.
• Taking the firesetting proclivity into consideration, the thought process
behind the current study is that by testing for a missing proclivity, we
could potentially identify individuals, who are at a higher risk of going
missing, due to their attitudes towards the behaviour.
• It is however important to note, that this study is entirely exploratory
as is the notion of a ‘missing proclivity’.
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Development of Missing Proclivity
• The missing proclivity scale consists of 5 scenarios and 5 questions each.
• All questions for each scenario are the same and measure various things
such as how fascinated they are by missing behaviour and whether or not
they could see themselves doing the same thing.
• The scenarios were developed using the same format as the vignettes within
the fire proclivity scale.
• The scenarios were also informed by the stories of returned missing persons
which are reported as part of a previous study known as the Geographies of
Missing project (Stevenson et al., 2013), particularly the Missing Voices
report (Parr & Stevenson, 2013).
• Once devised, the scenarios were discussed with the research team and
were amended/refined as appropriate.
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Example of Proclivity Scenarios
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Proclivity Questions
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Recruitment
• Participation was required from the general public and exclusion criteria consisted
simply of age, i.e. participants needed to be over the age of 18.
• Participants were recruited in a variety of different ways:
Many were sampled from colleagues/peer groups of the research team and a snowball
effect was encouraged
Many of the participants were also recruited from the student population at Abertay
University with large classes being a specific target
• It is important to note that participants were not explicitly told that the study
would be focused on missing behaviour and they were instead recruited under the
the assumption that it was just a generic behaviour interest questionnaire.
• This was to ensure that the study attracted a wide range of individuals and not just
those with an elevated interest in missing related issues.
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Procedural Information
• As well as completing the proclivity scale, participants were also
asked to answer basic demographic questions
• They were also asked to indicate if they had ever been reported
missing to the police, if they had ever considered themselves to be
missing and if they had ever thought about going missing personally
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Analysis
• In order to analyse the data proclivity scores were generated for each
participant, for example, the answer ‘not at all fascinated’ on question 1
(all scenarios) was coded as 1 whilst ‘extremely fascinated’ was coded as 4.
In summary, the higher the score, the more fascinated the person was with
missing episodes. This same technique was applied to the other 4
questions.
• Once generated the proclivity scores were then put into SPSS and basic
comparisons were conducted between those who had been reported
missing before and those who had not and those who had thought about
going missing before and those who had not.
• The aim of this was to see if there was any early indication that a missing
proclivity may exist.
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Demographics
• 271 participants
Male,
27.70%
• 72% female, 27.7% male and 0.3% other
Female,
72%
• Mean age is 22.54 (SD = 6.59)
• Of the 271, 7 (2.6%) stated that they had been reported missing to the police
• 20% however stated that they had personally thought about going missing
before.
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Proclivity Results
• Those who have been reported missing to the police and those who
have not, did not differ significantly on any proclivity questions
however, there were some notable differences between them on 2 out
of 5 questions:
In this situation could you see yourself doing the same thing?
Imagine you had been the one who had gone missing under these
circumstances, upon return do you believe that you would be likely
to go missing again?
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Proclivity Results
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Proclivity Results
• In terms of those who stated that they had thought about going missing
before and those who hadn’t, significant differences were found on 4 out
of 5 questions:
Imagine you have seen a newspaper article or a report on the TV
detailing the situation, how fascinated would you be by the missing
episode? (p=.043)
In this situation could you see yourself doing the same thing? (p<.001)
In this situation, do you think going missing is a good option? (p=.01)
Imagine you had been the one who had gone missing under these
circumstances, upon return do you believe that you would be likely
to go missing again? (p=.033)
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Proclivity Results
• As there was 5 questions per scenario, the maximum score for each
measure (i.e. fascination, relatability etc.) was 20, whilst the
minimum was 5.
• Interestingly, scores were recorded at both ends of the scale
(inclusive of both the minimum and maximum).
• This indicates that the full scale is being used and again extremely
positive for the potential existence of ‘missing proclivity’.
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Conclusion
• In summary, no significant differences between the proclivity scores of
those who have been reported missing and those who have not.
• Important to note that only a very small percentage of participants have
been reported missing (2.6%) so this is may not be enough to cause any
affects.
• Many more individual stated that they had thought about personally
going missing and significant differences can be seen here in comparison
to those who have not thought about it.
• Missing proclivity may therefore be linked with thoughts of missing as
opposed to going missing however further data collection and tests will
be required.
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Development of a Missing
Attribution Scale
• 6 difference scenarios, 5 questions each. These were developed using the same
method as the proclivity scale i.e. by drawing upon previous research.
• Each scenario includes a different influencing variable such as, age, gender, life
stressors or mental health issues
• Participants were randomly assigned to group A or B, which contained different
versions of the same vignettes
• Example:
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Example…
 Scenario 1A: Amy is aged 18, Scenario 1B: Amy is aged 32
 Scenario 4A: George has depression, Scenario 4B: George does not have depression
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Example
• 5 questions for each scenario:
The first asks how likely they believe the missing episode to be
intentional
The second asks how likely they are to personally consider the person
missing
The third focuses on how likely they would be to take notice of a
media appeal detailing the case
The fourth is based on how likely they are to report a sighting of this
person, should they see them
The fifth asks whether they personal consider the person to be
vulnerable and in need of location
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Demographics
• 269 participants
130 Group A and 139 Group B
• 72% female, 27.7% male and 0.3% other
• Mean age is 22.54 (SD = 6.59)
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Male,
27.70%
Female,
72%
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Analysis
• In a similar fashion to the proclivity analysis, attribution scores were
generated for each participant, for example, the answer ‘not at all
likely’ on question 1 (all scenarios) was coded as 1 whilst ‘extremely
likely’ was coded as 4.
• In summary, the higher the score, the more the person was considered
to be missing. This same technique was applied to the other 4
questions.
• Once generated the attribution scores were then put into SPSS and
basic comparisons were conducted between those who had received
scenarios A and those who has received scenarios.
• The aim of this was to see which situations were more likely to be
considered as missing incidents.
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Results
• Significant differences were found between the scores of
group A and B with regards to 4 out of 6 variables:
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Conclusion
• So as we can see from the table, significant differences between groups
exist with regards to scenarios 1,2,3 and 4.
• What this suggests is that people are more likely to attribute missing
behaviour to younger individuals, those experiencing life stressors such
as job loss and the presence of mental health issues, particularly when
symptoms are active and negatively impacting the person at that
moment in time.
• Gender and extent of life stressor were not considered to be attributes
of missing.
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Overall Summary
• We can see from the initial data that there may be some interesting differences
when comparing those who have been reported missing before with those who
have not in terms of proclivity, even more so when we consider those who had
thought about going missing before and those who had not.
• This study also highlights, for this first time, some of the variables which
contribute to whether a person considers another to be missing or not
• Despite this however, further data must be collected and additional analyses will
be conducted in order to fully understand missing persons and their behaviour.
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Further Directions
• These studies, along with the behaviour interest and impulsivity scales, are part of
a wider doctoral research project which consists of 3 stages:
Analysis of Police Scotland data
Interviews with adults who have been missing on more than one occasion
Interviews with care staff from the top 10 locations for missing adults in Scotland
• Whilst the aim of these specific questionnaires were to determine if there is such
a thing as missing proclivity and understand what people attribute missing
towards, the wider focus of the research is centered around behavioural
consistencies in repeat missing adults
• This research, which is directly investigating repeat missing behaviour in adults for
the first time, will provide critical insights for multi-agency prevention and future
safeguarding strategies.
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Thank You!
For regular project updates, please have a look at our website
and follow us on twitter:
Website – www.multiplemissing.weebly.com
Twitter – @MultipleMissing
Email – [email protected]
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