Emotional intelligence and intimately assaultive men

• Main Author: Winters, Jason
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/11917

Research on the causes of male intimate assault has typically focused on personality disorders (e.g. Dutton, 1994a; Dutton, 1998), social learning theory (e.g. Dutton, 1998), sociological feminism and patriarchy (e.g. Bograd, 1988; Dobash & Dobash, 1979), and sociobiology (e.g. Daly & Wilson, 1988; Buss, 1994; Strachan & Dutton, 1992). To date, there is no literature specifically addressing the relationship between battering and emotional intelligence, a concept that captures the success, or lack thereof, of a person's functioning in their immediate environment. Forty-four men convicted of spousal assault completed the Emotional Quotient-Inventory (EQ-i; Bar-On, 1997), the Propensity for Abusiveness Scale (PAS; Dutton, 1995b), and the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR; Paulhus, 1984, 1988, 1991). Results indicate that batterers score significantly lower than the general population on all components of the EQ-i. Additionally, for 9 of 16 EQ-i subscales, scores correlate negatively and significantly with scores on the PAS, suggesting that deficits in various components of emotional intelligence are related to an increase in the propensity to be abusive. Implications for batterer treatment are discussed. === Arts, Faculty of === Psychology, Department of === Graduate