The relationship between attribution of blame for a violent act and EPQ-R sub-scales in male offenders with mental disorder

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between personality, depression and attribution of blame for a violent act. Data was collected from 65 male inpatients from two Medium Secure Units. All participants had committed an act of a violent nature. Participants were administered the Gudjonsson Blame Attribution Inventory (GBAI), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised (EPQ-R) and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II). Results were generally supportive of previous research findings. Guilt attributions were negatively correlated with psychoticism scores, external attributions were positively correlated with psychoticism scores and mental element attributions were positively correlated with neuroticism scores, on the EPQ-R. A trend was further observed between higher guilt attributions and increased depression scores.