Date of Award
2024
Publication Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Psychology
Keywords
emotional intelligence; emotional manipulation; intimate partner violence; psychopathic traits; psychopathy; romantic relationship
Supervisor
Calvin Langton
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Psychopathy has largely been associated with negative outcomes for oneself, as well as for others (Leedom, 2017; Love & Holder, 2014). One such negative outcome is intimate partner violence (IPV), which is a prevalent public health concern (Collison & Lynam, 2023; WHO, 2022). To seek a better understanding of what contributes to the perpetration of IPV and coercive control (CC) by those with psychopathic traits, the present study examined psychopathy’s association with psychological wellbeing and relationship quality, as well as how “the dark side” of emotional intelligence (EI) and emotional manipulation (Austin et al., 2014) may play a role in individuals with psychopathic traits abusing their romantic partners. A cross-sectional design was used and data were collected through online surveys. In addition to self-reporting psychopathic traits, psychological wellbeing, relationship quality, EI, emotional manipulation, and IPV and CC perpetration, participants were also asked to report their perceptions of their partners’ psychopathic traits, EI, and emotional manipulation, as well as their experiences of IPV and CC perpetrated by their romantic partners towards them. Due to gender differences being reported in the literature for many of these variables, analyses were conducted separately for self-identified women and men when possible. Further, to explicitly link the present study’s findings to potentially clinically relevant implications, the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5; Krueger et al., 2012) was used to measure psychopathic traits along with the widely used Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP; Levenson et al., 1995). As hypothesized, the present study’s findings showed that higher self-reported psychopathy and perceptions of partner’s psychopathy were associated with lower self-reported psychological wellbeing, as well as relationship satisfaction, commitment, and perception of relationship alternatives. Also consistent with hypotheses, higher self-reported psychopathy tended to be associated with higher IPV and CC perpetration, and higher perceived partner psychopathy tended to be associated with more self-reported experiences of IPV and CC victimization. Contrary to what was expected, higher self-reported psychopathy was associated with lower self-reported EI, and higher perceived partner psychopathy was associated with lower perceived partner EI. As expected, however, higher perceived partner EI was associated with lower self-reported EI. In an SEM model, lower self-reported EI and higher self-reported psychopathy directly led to increased IPV perpetration. Additionally, as expected, self-reported EI weakened the relationship between perceptions of partners’ psychopathy and experience of physical abuse and CC victimization. Finally, consistent with hypotheses, when psychopathy, EI, and emotional manipulation were included in regression models to predict IPV and CC, differing aspects of psychopathy and emotional manipulation were significant predictors for different types of IPV, with the tendency to worsen others’ moods consistently contributing to negative outcomes. The present study findings provide a more nuanced picture of how personality factors, particularly psychopathic traits, and EI are associated with IPV and CC, despite certain findings being contrary to what might be expected given how EI has been sometimes conceptualized in relation to psychopathy in the literature.
Recommended Citation
Sheinin, Gabriela Deborah Bohórquez, "Is Love Blind? The Impact of Young Adults’ Emotional Intelligence and Psychopathic Traits, and Their Perceptions of These in Their Partner, on Their Relationships and Experience of Intimate Partner Violence" (2024). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 9629.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/9629