professor tony ward empathy, altruism and the treatment of ... · empathy 1. graduated nature of...

Empathy, altruism and the treatment of sex offenders.

Professor Tony Ward

Key References

Law, D. R. & Ward, T. (2011). Desistance from sexual offending: Alternatives to throwing away the keys. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Ward, T., & Durrant, R. (2011). Evolutionary behavioural science: Etiological and intervention implications. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 16, 193-210.

Ward, T., & Durrant, R. (In press). Altruism, empathy, and sex offender treatment. International Journal of Behavioral Consultation and Therapy (speical sisue on SO).

Core Argument The concept of empathy is popular theoretically

and clinically in sexual offending field.

However, there are serious problems:1. With the definition of this concept2. Lack of empirical evidence for deficits3. Little explanatory value4. Lack of clinical utility

. I argue that the forward to to replace empathy with the concept of altruism (psychological and behavioural)

Why Empathy? Being able to emotionally respond to other

people and to share their experiences is a core psychological skill and an essential ingredient of healthy intimate relationships and strong communities.

Empathy, sympathy, emotional knowledge, mind reading, and mentalizing: a few of the terms evident in the research and popular literature to refer to this concept(Decenty, 2012).

Why Empathy?

Majority of sex offender programmes include empathy interventions in list of essential treatment components (Marshall et al., 2012).

Sexual offences: overriding of another persons best interests by an offender, and point to empathy deficits.

Empathy and its Discontents Surprisingly little evidence that sex

offenders have enduring empathy deficits that empathy interventions result in reduced reoffending.

Mann and Barnett (2013): weak evidence base and a lack of a coherent model of change

I think the problem is deeper than this!

Empathy and its Discontents Several contestable assumptions:1. Empathy deficits represent specific psychological

problems that are reliably present in SO (even if specific to a particular victim or context).

2. Empathy interventions increase the ability of offenders to respond empathically to potential victims

3. Offenders who successfully resist the desire to reoffend do so because have become more empathic.

Empathy and its Discontents Assumptions boil down to claim that

empathy related competencies (i.e., perspective taking, emotional responsiveness, according others respect, being able to manage ones own emotional distress etc.) are necessary and/or sufficient for desistance from sexual offending.

Lack of evidence and theoretical cogency!

The Nature of Empathy

Empathy is both an act and a capacity.

Imagine how someone else is likely to be feeling in certain situations, or alternatively, anticipate how you would feel in similar circumstances.

Requisite skills: psychologically decenter, emotional knowledge, emotional regulation, deliberation, and perspective taking skills etc.

The Nature of Empathy Being able to emotionally respond to other people and to

share their experiences is a core psychological skill and an essential ingredient of healthy intimate relationships and strong communities.

Feeling a congruent emption with another person, in virtue of perceiving her emption with some mental process such as imitation, simulation, projection, or imagination. (Oxley(2011, p.32)

Empathy interventions typically included in sex offender treatment programs.

Empathy Problems

1. Empirical research and theoretical analyses suggest that the presence of empathy on its own does not reliably result in moral and prosocial behavior (Batson, 2011; Oxley, 2011 ).

2. People tend to over privilege current circumstances when considering the interests of others and discount longer term factors.

Empathy Problems 3. Empathy helps to motivate individuals to take into account others’ interests but not a form of ethical or value based deliberation (i.e. normatively detached)4. People can act in prosocial ways because of personal commitments or due to the anticipated negative consequences of not doing so, rather than because they are empathic. 5. People could commit harmful acts against others in the presence of an empathic response (emotional congruence)

Empathy Theory: Barnett & Mann Empathy is a cognitive and emotional

understanding of another person’s experience, resulting in an emotional response for the observer which is congruent with a view that others are worthy of compassion and respect and have intrinsic worth (Barnet & Mann, 2013p.23).

Barnett and Mann hypothesize that five sets of processes converge to create an empathic response:

Empathy: Barnett & Mann

Empathy Theory: Barnett & Mann Evaluation Have developed a comprehensive account of metalizing

that required for actions that are response to other people's interests and needs.

Extended the concept beyond its domain of meaning and transformed it into something approximating altruism.

Little evidence that sex offenders have enduring

empathy deficits or that empathy interventions result in reduced reoffending (Barnett & Mann 2013).

What is Empathy?

Feeling a congruent emption with another person, in virtue of perceiving her emption with some mental process such as imitation, simulation, projection, or imagination. (Oxley(2011, p.32)

NOT the same thing as mentalisation, theory of mind, mindreading, respect etc!

Narrow its role down and use concept of altruism in the broader

Altruism Failure

Researchers and practitioners should be concentrating on incidents of altruism failure rather than empathy failure.

All of the treatment modules typically implemented with sex offenders play a role in addressing the major classes of problems evident in altruism failure (which includes empathy failure as currently construed).

Altruism Failure

Suggest that a multi dimensional, rich account of psychological altruism created by Philip Kitcher (2010, 2011) has the conceptual resources to incorporate the contributions that the concept of empathy and the treatment interventions associated with it, while avoiding its weaknesses.

Multidimensional Concept of Psychological Altruism Psychological altruism is concerned

with the intentions of an agent and is evident when an individual adjusts his/her actions to take into account the interests and desires of other people.

Behavioral altruists act to further their own, self-serving interests while seeming to intentionally act in ways that promote others interests.

Multidimensional Concept of Psychological Altruism Ethical and social norms are

especially important in preventing altruism failure by prompting people to behave altruistically even if they are not inclined to do so .

This component of successful desistance arguably missing from SO programs

Multidimensional Concept of Psychological Altruism To be an altruist is to have a particular kind of

relational structure in your psychological life – when you come to see that what you do will affect other people, the wants you have, the emotions you feel, the intentions you form change from what they would have been in the absence of that recognition. Because you see the consequences for others of what you envisage doing, the psychological attitudes you adopt are different. (Kitcher, 2010, p.122)

Multidimensional Concept of Psychological Altruism Individual’s altruism profile has five

dimensions:1. Intensity: degree realign desires/interests 2. Range: the list of people whose desires/interests normally

takes into account 3. Scope: the internal and external contexts in which likely

to act altruistically 4. Discernment: ability to identify consequences of his/her

actions for relevant others 5. Empathetic skills: ability to accurately infer another

persons relevant mental or physical states

Multidimensional Concept of Psychological Altruism

Therefore: individuals act in ways that disregard the interests of others (altruism failure) in situations where other people’s desires and interests should have high priority, when:

Multidimensional Concept of Psychological Altruism 1. Do not sufficiently modulate their own desires

(intensity)2. Unreasonably exclude certain classes of people

or specific individuals from the list of those towards whom they ought be behave altruistically (range)

3. Because of the influence of cognitive, emotional, physiological, social or environmental factors (scope)

4. Incapable of, or fail in certain contexts to exhibit their capacities to discern the consequences of their actions (discernment)

5. Lack capacity to accurately detect mental states of victims or fail to exercise it in certain

Empathy and Psychological Altruism Concept of psychological altruism has

several advantages over the concept of empathy

1. Graduated nature of Altruism problems: scope, range, intensity.

2. Consistent with evidence: context, specificity etc 3. Empathetic responses and their constituents have a role

to play in psychological altruism4. Better fit with existing theories of SO (state and trait

causal factors)5. Barnett and Mann & other ET map onto the multi

dimensional concept of psychological altruism 6. More comprehensive guide for intervention7. Can integrate norms and ‘facts’ of treatment

Psychological Altruism and Treatment of Sex Offenders

Aims of treatment from the framework of psychological altruism is to make it less probable that an offender will experience altruism failure and therefore fail to take the desires and interests of relevant individuals into account

What matters from a treatment perspective is that offenders act towards others in an altruistic manner, rather than that they feel empathic.


Drawing from the assessment data (comprising interview information, psychological measures, archive data, behavioral observations etc.) practitioners can ask the following questions, each covering one of the five dimensions of altruism.

1. Range. Are there any individuals or classes of people explicitly excluded from X’s list of altruism targets


2. Scope. Are there any internal or external contexts in which X’s ability to act altruistically are compromised in some way?

3. Discernment. Does X lack an adequate understanding of the psychological and developmental needs of children or mental states etc of women?


4. Empathetic skills. Does X struggle to accurately identify other people’s mental states during an interaction? Is he able to adjust his actions in light of his reading of others’ mental states?

5. Intensity. Does X possess the general practical reasoning and self-management skills in order to frame other people’s situations and can he realign his own desires/preferences and actions in order to respond in an appropriate manner?


Treatment Modules (Examples)1. Cognitive restructuring/offence

understanding: issues of scope and range

2. Empathy: scope, range, empathic inferences

3. Social skills and intimacy: discernment, empathic inferences, range, scope

4. Emotional regulation: scope, range, intensity

Conclusions

Concept of psychological altruism and its associated five dimensions can incorporate valued aspects of concept of empathy

While avoiding some of the serious conceptual and practice related problems that attend it.

Conclusions

Sex Offender rehabilitation has a strong normative as well as a scientific or empirical dimension.

Concept of psychological altruism is much better positioned to provide this broader perspective than empathy.

professor tony ward empathy, altruism and the treatment of ... · empathy 1. graduated nature of...

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