Narcissism, anger and depression in the prediction of emotional awareness and empathy in perpetrators of child sexual abuse

This study anticipated that perpetrators would score higher in narcissistic abuse, poisonous pedagogy, hostility and depression and lower in empathy. Three groups of men were utilized: Perpetrators in therapy, non-perpetrators in therapy, and non-perpetrators not in therapy. These perpetrators had molested a child under the age of 13 with whom they were in a position of authority. Measures utilized were the O'Brien Multiphasic Narcissism Inventory, Multidimensional Anger Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, and Marlowe Crowne Social Desirability Scale. One-way Analysis of Variances were performed to differentiate the perpetrators from the comparison groups in five areas. The hypothesis that perpetrators would differentiate from the comparison groups on narcissistic abuse was supported. It was concluded that the perpetrators in this study placed other's needs before their own, saw the possibility of being understood as hopeless, and looked to others for approval and validation. The hypotheses that predicted differences between perpetrators and the comparison groups in the areas of poisonous pedagogy, hostility, depression and emotional awareness and/or empathy were not supported. The final hypothesis regarded the prediction of emotional awareness and empathy by the other dependent variables in a multiple regression equation. Social Desirabilty accounted for a significant portion of unique variance in all three levels of the analysis (Self and Other Awareness and Empathy) and was negatively correlated. Depression was also negatively correlated and contributed unique variance in the analyses for Other Awareness and Empathy. Narcissistic abuse and hostility, however, did not contribute to the equation. Supplemental analyses examined developmental variables that related to the dependent variables and explored sexual, drug and alcohol histories: Men who had their first experience of self-initiated intercourse at a later time were higher in empathy and awareness of others' feelings; perpetrators more frequently reported involvement in childhood sexplay, and, when apprehended, received more severe and shameful results; perpetrators had more extramarital relationships with adult women; perpetrators reported significantly higher incidence of alcohol and drug use and being a child of an alcoholic. It is recommended that supportive, affective therapy supplement the currently sanctioned cognitive-behavioral programs in treating the narcissistic disturbances that are frequently evidenced in child sexual abusers.