Decision-making Styles in Adolescent Offenders and Non-offenders: Effects of Emotional Intelligence and Empathy

Abstract

The literature indicates that adolescents with delinquent behavior have greater difficulty making rational decisions and show lower emotional intelligence and empathy. Decision-making is a set of complex processes associated with neurobiological, cognitive, emotional, and social factors which help regulate and guide behavior, which could be influenced by emotional intelligence and empathy. A comparative, correlational, and predictive study was conducted to analyze relationships and influence of emotional intelligence and empathy in decision-making styles in adolescent offenders and non-offenders. 808 Colombian adolescents between 14 and 18 years of age participated (50% offenders). The results indicated significant differences in emotional attention, perspective taking, fantasy, empathic concern, vigilance, and hypervigilance. Emotional repair and perspective taking were identified as favoring rational decision-making. Additionally, emotional attention and personal distress were found to influence hypervigilance, buck-passing, and procrastination. The importance of intervening in emotional intelligence and empathy to favor decision-making styles in adolescents is discussed. Los estilos de toma de decisiones en los adolescentes delincuentes y no delincuentes: la influencia de la inteligencia emocional y de la empatía R E S U M E NLa literatura indica que los adolescentes que presentan conductas delictivas tienen mayor dificultad para tomar decisiones racionales y muestran menor inteligencia emocional y empatía. La toma de decisiones es un conjunto de procesos complejos asociados a factores neurobiológicos, cognitivos, emocionales y sociales que ayudan a regular y orientar la conducta, que podría estar influenciada por la inteligencia emocional y la empatía. Se realizó un estudio comparativo, correlacional y predictivo para analizar las relaciones y la influencia de la inteligencia emocional y la empatía en los estilos de toma de decisiones de adolescentes delincuentes y no delincuentes. Participaron 808 adolescentes colombianos entre 14 y 18 años (50% con conducta delictiva). Los resultados indicaron que había diferencias significativas en atención emocional, toma de perspectiva, fantasía, preocupación empática, vigilancia e hipervigilancia. Se observó que la reparación emocional y la toma de perspectiva favorecían la toma de decisiones racional. Además, se observó que la atención emocional y la angustia personal influían en la hipervigilancia, el escaqueo y la procrastinación. Se discute la importancia de intervenir en la inteligencia emocional y la empatía para favorecer los estilos de toma de decisiones en los adolescentes. Palabras clave: Delincuentes juveniles Toma de decisiones Inteligencia emocional EmpatíaThe study of decision-making is complex, as it deals with processes that constantly affect life experience and behavior. Among other aspects, analyzing decision-making implies knowledge of neurobiological mechanisms, the role of learning and memory, and understanding the purpose and analyzing the motivati...

Time Perspective and Decision-Making: A Study on Decisional Patterns in Argentinian Adults

“…The first-order structure with four correlated dimensions was confirmed, and all subscales showed acceptable internal consistency (α ranged between 0.82 to 0.88). These results align with the model proposed by the authors (Mann et al, 1997) and corroborated in various studies that adapted the mdmq (Alzate-Saez de Heredia et al, 2004;Bailly & Ilharragorry-Devaux, 2011;Bouckenooghe et al, 2007;Cardona-Isaza et al, 2021;Colakkadioglu & Deniz, 2015;Cotrena et al, 2018;Filipe et al, 2020;Mann et al, 1997;Sarmany-Schuller, 1999;Tipandjan, 2010).…”

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The Influence of Affective Empathy on Online News Belief: The Moderated Mediation of State Empathy and News Type

“…TE's influence on cognition has been extensively studied [46][47][48][49][50]. For instance, using a dot-probe paradigm and eye-tracking technique to investigate attention bias toward happy faces and positive words in participants with high and low empathy, Liu et al [48] found that trait empathy influenced the processing of emotional information.…”

The Influence of Affective Empathy on Online News Belief: The Moderated Mediation of State Empathy and News Type

“…The influence of TE on cognition has been extensively studied [24][25][26][27][28]. For instance, using a dot-probe paradigm and eye-tracking technique to investigate the attention bias towards happy faces and positive words in participants with high and low empathy, Liu et al [55] found that trait empathy influenced the processing of emotional information.…”