Social Information Processed Self-Perceived Aggression in Relation to Brain Abnormalities in a Sample of Incarcerated Sexual Offenders (From Sexual Offender Treatment: Biopsychosocial Perspectives, P 37-47, 2000, Eli Coleman, Ph.D., and Michael Miner, Ph.D., eds. -- See NCJ-190183)

• NCJ Number: 190184
• Author(s): Reinhard Eher M.D.; Martin Aigner M.D.; Stefan Fruehwald M.D.; Patrick Frottier M.D.; Christine Gruenhut M.D.
• Date Published: 2000
• Length: 11 pages
• Sale Source: Haworth Press, Inc
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper examined social information processed self-perceived aggression in relation to brain abnormalities in a sample of incarcerated sexual offenders.

Abstract

In a sample of incarcerated sexual offenders, violent sexual behavior was associated with a general impulsive and aggressive lifestyle that was often a sequel of a criminal socialization with past nonsexual violent felonies. Magnetic resonance tomography detected numerous abnormalities in the brains of offenders who were most violent. Offenders with brain abnormalities exhibited differences in processing social cue reading and emotions. In offenders without brain abnormalities, self-perceived aggression was triggered by social unassertiveness and avoidance, and was negatively associated with interactional anxiety. No such interrelations were found in the brain abnormality group. These data provided empirical evidence for an association between awareness and self-perception of social cues and self-perceived aggressiveness which was destroyed in offenders with brain abnormalities. Thus, the paper hypothesized, multisite brain deficits might translate into violence in interfering with a social processing sequence leading to a disruption of a social information-emotionality chain. Tables, references