Emotional intelligence has been hailed as a positive and important attribute in today’s society — but is it always a good thing? A study published in the Journal of Sexual Aggression suggests that certain types of emotional intelligence may be inflated in sexual sadists.
Recognizing and understanding other people’s feelings is an important social skill and can be helpful for making decisions and behaving appropriately. These abilities form emotional intelligence, a tangible construct that aids people in understanding and using the emotions of themselves and others.
Higher emotional intelligence has been linked with more social support, increased success, and less interpersonal issues. Low levels of emotional intelligence have been linked with criminal offending, psychopathy, and sexual offenders.
While previous studies have explored emotional intelligence deficits among antisocial individuals such as psychopaths, there has been less research on emotional intelligence among individuals with paraphilic offenses, which include sexual sadism. By exploring these relationships, the researchers aimed to contribute to our understanding of the psychological factors underlying sexual offenses, which could ultimately help in developing more effective prevention and treatment strategies.
In their study, Daniella N. Greenfield and colleagues utilized 80 incarcerated men with sexual offenses and 207 incarcerated men with non-sexual offenses to serve as their sample. Non-sexual offenses included theft, robbery, drug possession, murder, assault, and more. All of these individuals met certain inclusion criteria, such as being between 18 and 65 years old, having a fourth-grade reading level or higher, having a standard IQ score of 70 or higher, and not having a history of a psychotic disorder.
Participants completed measures on sexual sadism, emotional intelligence (including area scores of experiential and strategic emotional intelligence and sub-scores of perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotions), general intelligence, psychopathy, and treatment status.
The study found that individuals who had committed sexual offenses and also exhibited sadistic traits tended to have higher levels of strategic emotional intelligence (the ability to manage and control emotions strategically) and scored higher on managing emotions (regulating the emotions of themselves and others).
However, these abilities do not necessarily mean they use their emotional intelligence for positive or socially beneficial outcomes. Their heightened emotional intelligence might allow such individuals to manipulate others or regulate their own emotions in ways that sustain their harmful behaviors.
The researchers also observed that those with multiple offenses had higher levels of sadism and better emotional intelligence skills in terms of strategic emotional intelligence and managing emotions.
Interestingly, the link between sadism and higher emotional intelligence was found mainly in those who hadn’t received any treatment related to managing and controlling emotions. This suggests that perhaps treatment could help mitigate this connection and improve how these individuals manage their emotions.
This study took interesting steps into better understanding emotional intelligence in offending populations. Despite this, there are limitations to note. One such limitation is that the sex offender population was older than the non-sex offender population. Additionally, many participants in this study had been incarcerated for long periods of time and were removed from their crime by many years. These factors could affect their emotional intelligence and sadism, which could be different at the time of the study than it was at the time of the crime.
“In conclusion, this study found a significant positive association between sexual sadism, Strategic [Emotional Intelligence], and Managing Emotions,” the researchers wrote. “These novel results should prompt further investigations of the emotional abilities of sadistic individuals that also consider variables such as upbringing, the use of [emotional intelligence] for malevolent purposes, and [emotional intelligence] abilities in sexual/offence-related scenarios. Such research may facilitate the development of therapeutic interventions that target these unique cognitive and behavioural patterns.”
The study, “Emotional intelligence in incarcerated sexual offenders with sexual sadism“, was authored by Daniella N. Greenfield, Fadwa Cazala, Jessica Carre, Arielle Mitchell-Somoza, Jean Decety, David Thorntond, Kent A. Kiehl, and Carla L. Harenski.