Low sadness and high happiness facial prevalence to others' suffering in intimate partner violence against women perpetrators: influence of emotional decoding deficits

Abstract

An aligned facial response to others' emotions has been linked to adaptive social interactions. Interestingly, maladjusted emotional response has been recognized as a significant risk factor for intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW). However, the facial response of IPVAW perpetrators to others' negative emotions remains unclear. The present study analyzes the emotional facial response, as well as self-reported emotions, of IPVAW perpetrators (n = 55) compared to controls (n = 48) during a violence-focused empathic induction task using the "FaceReader" facial coding software. Additionally, we explored the emotional decoding influence on their emotional facial responsiveness. Compared to controls, IPVAW perpetrators exhibited a lower prevalence of sadness facial expression and a higher prevalence of happiness facial expressions during the task, along with reduced self-reported emotionality. Coherently, the lower the sadness facial expression, the lower the self-reported sadness and tenderness. Finally, poorer emotional decoding and belonging to the IPVAW group explained the lower prevalence of sadness and higher prevalence of happiness facial expressions. Our findings provide further evidence supporting a distinctive emotional response pattern to others’ suffering in IPVAW perpetrators. This study provides a promising direction to address the IPVAW occurrence by treating relevant socioaffective deficits, such as emotional responsiveness or emotional decoding.