In this study, two groups of male adults, marital violence offenders and a comparison group, were recruited to investigate (1) the differences in empathy, shame, and guilt between offenders and comparisons, (2) impacts of empathy, shame, and guilt on the expression of anger/aggression, (3) mediating role of empathy between self-consciousness emotions and anger/aggression expression.
The results were, firstly, marital violence offenders showed less guilt, perspective-taking, empathetic concern, but scored higher in anger/aggression expression. Additionally, shame, guilt and perspective-taking were significant in predicting anger/aggression expression for comparison samples. Guilt, perspective-taking and personal distress were significant in predicting anger/aggression expression for marital violence offenders. Thirdly, only for marital violence offenders, both empathy and perspective-taking do mediate the impact of self-consciousness emotion on anger/aggression expression.
On the whole, the supporting results suggested that marital violence offenders have deficit in self-consciousness emotions, certain components of empathy, and greater tendency of anger/aggression expression. Both self-consciousness emotions and some empathic components are good predictors for anger/aggression expression. In particular, results substantially support self-conscious emotions-empathy-aggression path model. However, the pathway would vary according to certain types of empathic components and specific population. Both theoretical and practical implications were discussed for future study and clinical works.