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Affective Empathy: Beliefs about Aggression and Schemas in a Sample of Convicted Violent Offenders and a Community Sample

The relevance of affective empathic response, beliefs about aggression and the presence of Early Maladaptive Schemas were explored in a sample of convicted adult male violent offenders and a community comparison sample of non-offenders. Participants were 100 offenders and 102 community males. All completed the Empathic Response Scale (ERS), the Expressive Aggressive inventory (EXPAGG), and the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ). An association was predicted among empathy, schema and beliefs in the convicted sample, with a further prediction that the convicted sample would present with higher levels of schema, aggression-supportive beliefs and lower levels of empathic capacity than the community sample. A higher number of maladaptive schemas was associated with higher levels of beliefs supporting aggression. Differences between the samples across measurements were restricted to beliefs supporting aggression, with the community sample reporting more aggression-supportive beliefs than the convicted sample. The implications of the research and suggestions for future directions are discussed.