Empathy and theory of mind in offenders with intellectual disability.
BACKGROUND
Little research has been carried out on empathy and theory of mind in offenders with intellectual disability (ID) and these concepts are often poorly defined.


METHODS
Various models of empathy and theory of mind are discussed and scores on 2 empathy and 3 theory of mind tasks are compared for 25 offenders with ID and 25 non-offenders with ID (all male).


RESULTS
Differences were found in empathy and theory of mind performance of offenders and non-offenders with ID. Offenders performed better than non-offenders on a second order theory of mind task and on emotion recognition. They required fewer prompts to mention emotions, and gave empathic/caring responses more often than non-offenders when observing happiness (but not sadness or anger).


CONCLUSIONS
Results suggest that offenders with ID may have better, rather than poorer, empathy and theory of mind abilities than non-offenders, and that empathy training is therefore not indicated for this group.
Proctor
Tracey
T
Derby Adult Learning Disability Service, UK.
Beail
Nigel
N
D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D018187:Personal Construct Theory; D010552:Personality Assessment; D019989:Persons with Intellectual Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D012919:Social Behavior