Psychopathy, Alexithymia and Emotional Intelligence in a Forensic Hospital

Abstract

In this study, we compared 20 criminal psychopaths and 19 nonpsychopaths identified with the PCL-R (Hare, 2003). All participants were adult males confined in a Belgian security hospital. The psychopath group and the control group were equivalent for age, IQ, and social desirability score (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960). First, the two groups completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS; Bagby et al. 1994a, b). This self report measure includes three factors: the identification of emotion states; the expression of emotion states to others, and operative thinking. Secondly, each participant completed the TEIque (Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire; Petrides & Furnam, 2003). The full version of this self-report includes 15 scales and 4 main factors. For this study, we selected six scales that were a priori supposed to be strongly involved in emotion processing: “emotional regulation” of self, “emotion management” of others, “relational aptitudes,” “emotional expression,” “emotional perception,” and “stress management.” First, psychopaths presented a lower total score on the TAS. Among the facets of psychopathy, the deficient affective component was the most negatively correlated to the TAS total score. These results disconfirmed the classical hypothesis of a perceived emotion deficit among psychopaths. Concerning the TEIque, psychopaths presented a higher score on both the “emotional perception” and “emotional regulation” scales. Again, among the facets of psychopathy, the deficient affective component was the most negatively correlated to the TEIque total score. The TAS and the TEIque total scores were negatively related (r = .61). The overall results are discussed in light of the recent literature on affects characteristics of psychopaths (Book, Quinsey, & Langford, 2007) and on their potential lifetime strategy (Harris & Rice, 2006).

Keywords:

• psychopathy
• emotions
• alexithymia
• emotional intelligence

This research was supported by an annual grant to the CRDS from the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs of the southern part of Belgium and by a grant to the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research FNRS. A preliminary version of the paper was presented at the Annual Congress of the International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services in Montréal, June 2007. Oliver Luminet is research associate at the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS).

Notes

²Bagby et al. (1994a, 1997b), the developers of the TAS-20, defined three: difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings to others, and externally oriented thinking.

* p < .05;

** p < .01.

*p < .05;

** p < .01.