title: The role of empathy in anger arousal in violent offenders and university students.
abstract: A lack of empathic responsiveness toward others has been consistently identified as an important antecedent to aggressive behavior and violent crime, with many rehabilitation programs for violent offenders incorporating treatment modules that are specifically designed to increase offender empathy. This study examined the extent to which cognitive (perspective taking) and affective (empathic concern, personal distress) empathy predicted anger in a clinical (male prisoners convicted of a violent offense) and a nonclinical (student) sample. Perspective taking emerged as the strongest predictor of self-reported anger in response to an interpersonal provocation, as well as being most consistently related to scores on measures of general trait anger and methods of anger control. While the relationship between perspective taking and anger was apparent for offenders as well as students, the results did not support the idea that an inability to perspective take is a particular characteristic of violent offenders.
authors.affiliation: Deakin Forensic Psychology Centre, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Geelong Waterfront Campus, Geelong, Victoria 3217, Australia. andrew.day@deakin.edu.au
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Day
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mohr
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Howells
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gerace
authors.forename: Loraine
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lim
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000786:Anger; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D001143:Arousal; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018187:Personal Construct Theory; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011329:Prisoners / Q000523:psychology*; D011330:Prisons; D011594:Psychometrics; D012016:Reference Values; D013021:South Australia; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D056345:Theory of Mind; D014754:Violence / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult