Citation

Leutgeb V, Leitner M, Klug D, Schienle A. Int. J. Offender Ther. Comp. Criminol. 2017; 61(16): 1933-1942.

Affiliation

University of Graz, Austria Anne.schienle@uni-graz.at.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0306624X16644793

PMID

27084332

Abstract

Intrusion into one's own personal space (PS) elicits discomfort. This is especially true when the intruder's facial mimicry expresses disgust or anger. Although it is known that the affective context influences PS processing, this has not been investigated in violent offenders. We presented images of affective facial expressions (i.e., anger, disgust, neutral) of men and women to violent offenders and nonoffenders. All images were shown twice-once as nonanimated photos and a second time as expanding (i.e., appearing to approach the participant). The participants rated their experienced arousal and valence for each image and completed personality questionnaires for the assessment of disgust proneness (tendency to experience disgust), disgust sensitivity (tendency to perceive one's own disgust feelings as aversive and uncontrollable), self-disgust (tendency to find oneself repulsive), and trait anger (tendency to experience anger). Offenders reported significantly elevated disgust proneness, self-disgust, and negative affect to male facial expressions of disgust. The negative affect experienced by offenders in the approaching disgust condition correlated with their self-disgust. Future studies should specifically investigate the association between sensitivity to disgust cues reflecting social rejection, self-disgust, and violent behavior.

© The Author(s) 2016.

Language: en