Nitschke, Joachim and Istrefi, Shota and Osterheider, Michael and Mokros, Andreas (2012) Empathy in sexually sadistic offenders: An experimental comparison with non-sadistic sexual offenders. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LAW AND PSYCHIATRY, 35 (3). pp. 165-167. ISSN 0160-2527,
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Previous studies suggest that severe sexual sadism and psychopathy are phenotypically different, although both are characterized by deficits in emotional processing. We assessed empathic capacity in a sample of 12 sexual sadists in comparison with 23 non-sadistic offenders using the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET). All participants were forensic patients under mandatory treatment orders who had committed sexual offenses. The MET is a computerized rating task that differentiates and measures cognitive and emotional components of empathy, or perspective-taking versus compassionate components. To identify the effects of possible empathy deficits caused by psychopathic traits, we controlled both samples for psychopathy as a covariate, measured by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). According to our results, sexual sadists did not differ from non-sadistic sexual offenders with regard to emotional empathy for either positive or negative stimuli. The results suggest that severe sexual sadism is a distinct, pathological sexual arousal response, not a deficit in emotional processing. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | ; Sexual sadism; Psychopathy; Empathy; Cognitive; Emotional |
| Subjects: | 600 Technology > 610 Medical sciences Medicine |
| Divisions: | Medicine > Abteilung für Forensische Psychiatrie |
| Depositing User: | Dr. Gernot Deinzer |
| Date Deposited: | 15 May 2020 05:36 |
| Last Modified: | 15 May 2020 05:36 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/18794 |
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