Empathy and criminal attitudes in adolescent male offenders and non-offenders

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the extent of empathy and criminal attitudes in a sample of offender and non-offender adolescents. Previous research has consistently reported that offenders have more antisocial attitudes than non-offenders but reports on the relationship between criminal behaviour and empathy are more equivocal. General criminal attitudes, violent attitudes, pride in committing criminal acts as well as general, cognitive and affective empathy were measured in a sample of 158 incarcerated adolescent offenders and community based non-offenders. As hypothesised, offenders demonstrated significantly less empathy and greater criminal attitudes than non-offenders. Empathy was found to have a moderate to strong negative relationship with criminal attitudes, both between and within groups, suggesting that individuals who hold greater criminal attitudes are less empathetic than those that hold attitudes less accepting of criminal behaviour. The data in support of this result was found to be free of significant social desirability bias, meaning the results accurately reflect the thoughts, feelings and attitudes of participants. The primary limitation of the research is the method of measuring empathy. Other limitations and areas for future research are also discussed.