Evaluation and interpretation of real or imagined stimuli done by humans is one of the predictors that will determine the behavioral repertoire, be it adaptive or maladaptive, with legal effect to be executed in the partner relationship. Therefore, this study assessed the performance on social cognition tasks in a group of men with a history of intimate partner violence. Participants were given emotion recognition and empathy tests. Results indicate that male abusers have difficulties with social cognition, possibly due to an intentional bias in recognizing the behaviors of others, which results in the attribution of a negative intentionality to their behavior. These results provide an empirical basis for legal psychology in the bimodal understanding of partner violence and thus guides intervention toward the needs of the individual.