The effects of visual priming on information processing in child sexual offenders

Abstract

Child sexual offenders are hypothesized to hold offence-supportive beliefs that set them apart from others. The current study seeks support for this view via a cognitive-experimental approach. Child sexual offenders and offender controls were exposed to pictures of semi-clothed children (priming condition) or clothed, mature adults (control condition). Participants then read ambiguous sentences describing children's actions that could be interpreted in a sexualized manner. Next, participants completed a surprise recognition test in which half the sentences were re-presented in an unambiguously sexual form, and half in an unambiguously non-sexual form. Contrary to hypotheses, primed and/or control child sexual offenders did not show a memory bias for sexualized sentences, suggesting that they did not interpret the original sentences in line with offence-supportive beliefs. Results raise questions about whether child sexual offenders universally hold abnormal beliefs that facilitate their offending. Results also highlight the need for further experimental research within this field.

Keywords:

• Child sexual offenders
• child molesters
• beliefs
• cognitive distortions
• priming
• information processing

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Department of Corrections for supporting this research. We also extend our thanks to the participants who took part. Finally, we thank Devon Polaschek for sharing her time and expertise in the writing of this manuscript. We would like to point out that the opinions expressed in this manuscript do not necessarily reflect views held by the Department of Corrections.