Abstract :
Background: Emotional intelligence refers to ability to monitor own and other people’s emotions. Lack of emotional intelligence can lead to many disturbances in one’s life. A comparison of emotional intelligence in offenders with antisocial personality disorder and in normal population has been done in this study.
Aim: The aim is to study emotional intelligence in offenders with antisocial personality disorder and compare it with normal population at a tertiary care centre in Hyderabad.
Methodology: It is a cross-sectional and comparative study done at Institute of mental health, Hyderabad. Study sample includes 70 males, out of this 35 were offenders diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and remaining 35 were from normal population. Tools used in this study are semi-structured intake pro-forma for sociodemographic details and criminal history, Goldberg’s 12 item General health questionnaire, Mangal emotional intelligence inventory, International classification of diseases-10 criteria.
Results: The offenders group with antisocial personality disorder scored less on emotional intelligence test domains such as intrapersonal awareness, interpersonal awareness, intrapersonal management, interpersonal management and the total emotional intelligence score when compared to normal individuals and the difference between the two groups was found to be statistically significant. (p = 0.000).
Conclusion: The offenders with antisocial personality had significantly lower Emotional intelligence in comparison to the normal group and an inverse relation was observed between levels of emotional intelligence and number of crimes committed.
Keyword :
Emotional intelligence, Antisocial personality disorder, Criminal offenses.