Blame attribution and guilt feelings in violent offenders

Abstract

Offenders with high psychopathic traits and/or antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) are hypothesised to experience less guilt and less responsibility for their actions than offenders without these problems. These hypotheses were tested and partly substantiated. The study investigates blame attributions and guilt feeling using Gudjonsson Blame Attribution Inventory–Revised (GBAI-R) for 177 young male violent offenders. GBAI scores were compared to ASPD and psychopathy according to the Psychopathy Checklist–Revised. Results showed that individuals with ASPD and those with higher degrees of psychopathy tended to report significantly less guilt and higher degree of mental control than other subjects. Another finding was a weak relationship between ASPD, high scores on psychopathic traits and external attribution. We suggest these results might be explained by admitting poor mental control may be extra difficult for individuals belonging to either of these groups and that the external attribution items do not separate causal from moral responsibility.

Keywords:

• blame
• responsibility
• guilt
• antisocial personality disorder
• psychopathy

Acknowledgements

No disclosure of interest has been declared by the authors. We are grateful to all participants who made this work possible. The authors would also like to thank Viveca Spång for the collection of all data and Stefan Axelsson and Monica Montell for coding of data.

Funding

This work was funded by grants from the Swedish Prison and Probations Services (project 2009-115, number 52-2009-012159), Region of Skåne, and the Lindhaga Foundation.

Notes

1. The main difference between psychopathy and ASPD is that the construct of ASPD has a stronger focus on the history of criminal and antisocial acts (Hare & Neumann, 2009).