The attribution of blame for criminal acts: relationship with personality disorders and mood

Abstract

Attribution of blame for criminal acts and its relationship to DSM‐IIIR (APA, 1987) personality disorder diagnosis and psychological variables was investigated in 52 men referred to an intensive probation programme. Self‐report questionnaires revealed a high rate of personality disorder psychopathology in the subjects with 73% meeting criteria for one personality disorder and 63.5% meeting criteria for anti‐social personality disorder. However, there was high multiple morbidity of personality disorder diagnosis with an average of 3.6 diagnoses for each subject. Blame attribution was measured with the Gudjonsson Blame Attribution Inventory (Gudjonsson & Singh, 1989) . External attribution of blame was found to correlate significantly positively with scores for five personality disorder categories (schizoid, avoidant, obsessive compulsive, passive‐aggressive and borderline), whilst mental element attribution was associated with avoidant personality disorder, high depression, anxiety and inward direction of irritability. Guilt feelings were positively associated with scores for schizotypal, avoidant and dependent personality disorder categories and with irritability directed inwards.