Perception of self and others in male sex offenders against children: Schema content and its relation to criminal sexual behaviour

Abstract

Thirty-four civilly committed male sex offenders against children (SOs) chose from a list of traits to describe self, mother, father, best friend, past lover, victim and therapist. Cluster analysis (INDCLAS) uncovered five patterns (i.e. schemas) in Sos’ social perception data: “sexual lover” (past lover described as sexual, arousing, etc. as well as anxious, lonely and worried), “benevolent parent” (mother and father described as warm, caring, etc.), “Sexual friend” (best friend described as happy, secure, etc.), “benevolent therapist” (therapist described as warm, caring, etc.) and “malevolent victim” (victim described as rejecting, cold, etc.). SOs with the benevolent parent schema tended to target boys and force oral sex on their victims; the latter was also true for those with the benevolent therapist schema. SOs without the benevolent parent schema tended to target girls and limit themselves to prepubescent victims. SOs with the sexual lover schema tended to commit vaginal penetrative crimes.

Keywords:

• Child molestation
• social perception
• clustering