TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2012//
TI  - Empathy in sexually sadistic offenders: An experimental comparison with non-sadistic sexual offenders
JO  - International journal of law and psychiatry
A1  - Nitschke, Joachim
A1  - Istrefi, Shota
A1  - Osterheider, Michael
A1  - Mokros, Andreas
SP  - 165
EP  - 167
VL  - 35
IS  - 3
N2  - 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.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0160-2527
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2012.02.003
ID  - ref1
ER  -