Attribution of blame for criminal acts and its relationship with psychopathy as measured by the Hare Psychopathic Checklist (PCL-SV).

Batson, Amy, Gudjonsson, Gisli and Gray, Jacqueline M. (2010) Attribution of blame for criminal acts and its relationship with psychopathy as measured by the Hare Psychopathic Checklist (PCL-SV). Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology, 21 (1) . pp. 91-101. ISSN 1478-9957 [Article] (doi:10.1080/14789940903284979)

Abstract

The concept of psychopathy describes disordered individuals as lacking in responsibility and feelings of guilt for their actions. The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between blame attribution (measured by the Gudjonsson Blame Attribution Inventory- Revised - GBAI-R) and psychopathy (measured by the Hare Psychopathic Checklist-Revised - PCL-SV) among mentally disordered offenders. It was hypothesised that psychopathy would correlate positively with external attribution of blame and negatively with feelings of guilt. Participants were 67 males from six medium secure units in the south east of England. A significant positive correlation was found between psychopathy (Factor 1 and Total score) and external attribution of blame, but not between psychopathy and feelings of guilt. The findings suggest that external attribution of blame is more associated with the interpersonal, affective and attitudinal factors of psychopathy (i.e. social-cognitive processes) than behavioural aspects (i.e. poor behavioural control).

Actions (login required)

View Item

Statistics

DownloadsShow export options

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Activity Overview

6 month trend

0Downloads

6 month trend

856Hits

Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.