ERIC Number: EJ723591
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2005
Pages: 15
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0886-2605
EISSN: N/A
Preliminary Evidence for an Automatic Link between Sex and Power among Men Who Molest Children
Kamphuis, Jan H.; De Ruiter, Corine; Janssen, Bas; Spiering, Mark
Journal of Interpersonal Violence, v20 n11 p1351-1365 2005
Understanding critical motivational processes of sexual offenders may ultimately provide important clues to more effective treatments. Implicit, automatic cognitive processes have received minimal attention; however, a lexical decision experiment revealed automatic links between the concepts of power and sex among participants who self-reported attraction to sexual aggression. The current study replicates this experiment with a group of male child molesters and forensic and analogue controls. Subliminally presented sex words elicited a facilitation effect for power words among child molesters only; that is, sex to power associations were evident, as well as a trend for the reverse. These results provide preliminary evidence for an automatic sex-power association in child molesters and may point to a crucial pathological link in the cognitive schemata of sex offenders. As well, the current study suggests that paradigms from cognitive psychology may contribute to multimodal (risk) assessment of sexual offenders.
Descriptors: Cognitive Processes, Cognitive Psychology, Sexual Harassment, Child Abuse, Males, Sexual Abuse, Power Structure, Gender Differences, Criminals
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A