Indirect Measures of Sexual Interest in Child Sex Offenders

Abstract

Although there is strong meta-analytical evidence that deviant sexual interest in children is a major risk factor for recidivism in child sex offenders, the assessment of deviant sexual interest with self-report or phallometric measures is problematic. As an alternative approach for assessment, the Explicit and Implicit Sexual Interest Profile (EISIP) is introduced. It features direct self-report and indirect latency-based measures (Implicit Association Tests [IATs] and viewing time measures) of sexual interest in adults and children. The reliability and validity of the EISIP was investigated using a selected sample of child sex offenders ( n = 38) and offender ( n = 37) and nonoffender ( n = 38) controls. Among the indirect measures, viewing time measures showed higher reliability and convergent and criterion validity than the IATs. However, the IATs independently accounted for criterion variance in multivariate analyses. The combined indirect measures showed good discriminative validity between child sex offenders and controls.

Vicarious Viewing Time: Prolonged Response Latencies for Sexually Attractive Targets as a Function of Task- or Stimulus-Specific Processing

“…The target stimuli were 80 computer-constructed photographs of male and female individuals taken from the Not Real People (NRP) picture set (Pacific Psychological Assessment Corporation, 2004; for examples, see Laws & Gress, 2004), which has been successfully employed in previous research (e.g., Banse et al, 2010;Imhoff et al, 2010) and which features male and female individuals belonging to five categories of sexual maturation (corresponding to categories defined by Tanner, 1978). The Tanner categories 1 to 3 depict prepubescent children of increasing physical maturity, Tanner category 4 post-pubescent adolescents, and Tanner category 5 young adults.…”

“…In many studies, the unobtrusive measurement of the response time was accompanied by the task of rating the sexual attractiveness of the presented stimuli (e.g., Abel et al, 1998;Banse et al, 2010;Glasgow et al, 2003). It is conceivable that the required rating task that leads directly to different response time patterns is based on sexual preference.…”

“…This basic finding by Rosenzweig (1942) has been systematically exploited in applied settings to infer sexual preferences from response latencies. Importantly, these latencies do not only differ reliably between individuals with varying sexual orientation (i.e., hetero-vs. homosexual men; Imhoff et al, 2010;Israel & Strassberg, 2007;Quinsey, Ketsetzis, Earls, & Karamanoukian, 1996;Zamansky, 1956), but also produce specific patterns for individuals with differing sexual age preferences (e.g., individuals with sexual interest in adults vs. children) (Abel, 1995;Abel, Huffman, Warberg, & Holland, 1998;Abel, Jordan, Hand, Holland, & Phipps, 2001;Banse, Schmidt, & Clarbour, 2010;Glasgow, Osborne, & Croxen, 2003;Gress, 2005;Harris, Rice, Quinsey, & Chaplin, 1996).…”

Risk Factors for Sexual Offending in Men Working With Children: A Community-Based Survey

“…Status regarding previous sexual victimization of children was evaluated by means of self-report, using the Explicit Sexual Interest Questionnaire (ESIQ; Banse, Schmidt, & Clarbour, 2010) and/or items regarding previous experiences with child prostitution. The ESIQ is a 40-item self-report scale assessing sexual behaviors and fantasies with men/women/boys/and girls, with five items each.…”

“…Sexual fantasies involving children -more specifically involving boys or girls -were assessed using the shortened version of the ESIQ (Banse et al, 2010). Participants were asked to indicate whether they have ever a) got excited when imagining that a boy/girl sexually stimulates them, b) had daydreams about having sex with a boy/girl, and c) found it erotic to see a boy's or a girl's body through their clothes.…”