Gender differences in prosocial tendencies of convicted murderers

Abstract

The study is devoted to the study of prosocial tendencies in criminals convicted of murder: various components of empathy, types of assistance depending on the situation, assimilation of social norms of assistance. The sample consisted of convicts serving sentences for intentional unlawful deprivation of another person’s life (murder) aged 19 to 72 years (150 men and 150 women). It was found that men have a higher level of altruistic type of prosocial behaviour than women; women have higher rates of cognitive empathy, fantasy, empathic care and personal distress; men differ from women in high rates of social responsibility and reciprocity norms, the cost – reward norm is significantly higher in women.

Author Biography

Olga V. Bindasova, Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University, 1 Kasmanaŭtaŭ Street, Mahilioŭ 212022, Belarus

postgraduate student at the department of psychology and correctional work, faculty of pedagogy and psychology of childhood

References

  1. Batson CD. Prosocial motivation: is it ever truly altruistic? Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. 1987;20:65–122. DOI: 10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60412-8.
  2. Fourmanov IA. Sotsial'naya psikhologiya agressii i nasiliya: profilaktika i korrektsiya [Social psychology of aggression and violence: prevention and correction]. Minsk: Publishing Centre of the Belarusian State University; 2016. 401 p. Russian.
  3. Eisenberg N, Damon W, Lerner RM, editors. Handbook of child psychology: social, emotional and personality development. Volume 3. New York: John Wiley & Sons; 2006. 1154 p.
  4. Beven JP, O’Brien-Malone’s А, Hall G. Using the interpersonal reactivity index to assess empathy in violent offenders. International Journal of Forensic Psychology. 2004;1(2):33–41.
  5. Chen Wuying, Lu Jiamei, Liu Lianqi, Lin Wenyi. Gender differences of empathy. Advances in Psychological Science. 2014;22(9):1423–1434. Chinese. DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2014.01423.
  6. de Corte K, Buysse A, Verhofstadt LL, Roeyers H, Ponnet K, Davis MH. Measuring empathic tendencies: reliability and validity of the Dutch version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Psychologica Belgica. 2007;47(4):235–60. DOI: 10.5334/pb-47-4-235.
  7. Lucas-Molina B, Pérez-Albéniz A, Ortuño-Sierra J, Fonseca-Pedrero E. Dimensional structure and measurement invariance of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) across gender. Psicothema. 2017;29(4):590–595. DOI: 10.7334/psicothema 2017.19.
  8. Eagly AH, Crowley M. Gender and helping behavior: a meta-analytic review of the social psychological literature. Psychological Bulletin. 1986;100(3):283–308. DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.100.3.283.
  9. Gottfredson MR, Hirschi T. A general theory of crime. Redwood City: Stanford University Press; 1990. 297 p.
  10. Rishipal VD, Devgun V. Prosocial behavior and grit among criminals and non-criminals. International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management. 2019;8(3):1–7.
  11. Kuhtova NV, Domorackaya NV. Prosotsialnoe povedenie spetsialistov, orientirovannykh na okazanie pomoshchi: theoreticheskie osnovy i metodiki izucheniya [Prosocial behaviour of assistance-oriented specialists: theoretical foundations and methods of study]. Vitebsk: Vitebsk State University named after P. M. Masherov; 2011. 49 p. Russian.
  12. Feinman S. When does sex affect altruistic response? Psychological Reports. 1978;43(3):1218. DOI: 10.2466/pr0.1978. 43.3f.1218.
  13. Afolabi OA. Roles of personality types, emotional intelligence and gender differences on prosocial behavior. Psychological Thought. 2013;6(1):124–139. DOI: 10.5964/psyct.v6i1.53.
  14. Abdullahi IA, Kumar P. Gender differences in prosocial behavior. International Journal of Indian Psychology. 2016;3(4). DOI: 10.25215/0304.
Published
2022-09-08
Keywords: types of prosocial behaviour, empathy, social norms of prosocial behaviour, criminals convicted of murder
How to Cite
Bindasova, O. V. (2022). Gender differences in prosocial tendencies of convicted murderers. Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology, 3, 95-100. Retrieved from https://journals.bsu.by/index.php/philosophy/article/view/4459
Issue
No 3 (2022): Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology
Section
Psychological Researches

Copyright (c) 2022 Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The authors who are published in this journal agree to the following:

  1. The authors retain copyright on the work and provide the journal with the right of first publication of the work on condition of license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial. 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
  2. The authors retain the right to enter into certain contractual agreements relating to the non-exclusive distribution of the published version of the work (e.g. post it on the institutional repository, publication in the book), with the reference to its original publication in this journal.
  3. The authors have the right to post their work on the Internet (e.g. on the institutional store or personal website) prior to and during the review process, conducted by the journal, as this may lead to a productive discussion and a large number of references to this work. (See The Effect of Open Access.)