Personality traits and male vulnerability to commercial sexual exploitation victimisation

Abstract

Background There has been little research into whether personality traits increase vulnerability to serious forms of recurring victimisation, such as commercial sexual exploitation of young people. Aims To investigate whether impulsivity, emotional dysregulation or high psychopathy scale scores indicative of personality traits increase vulnerability to commercial sexual exploitation. Methods Data were used from the longitudinal Pathways to Desistance Study 1170 justice‐involved men who were aged 14–19 at baseline data collection. Ninety‐eight (8%) reported having been commercially sexually exploited during adolescence or young adulthood. We investigated whether personality traits measured at baseline were related to such victimisation. Results Results of binomial logistic regression among the young men in this sample indicated that Factor 1 scores on the Psychopathy Checklist‐Youth Version (PCL‐YV), reflecting affective and interpersonal features, are associated with having been commercially sexually exploited, while impulsivity, emotional dysregulation and Factor 2 PCL‐YV, reflecting antisocial activities, were not. Having been a victim of other violence and being a member of a cultural or ethnic minority group were also independently related to being exploited. Conclusions and implications for practice Our findings show that individual differences in personality, such as fearless temperament and boredom susceptibility, could differentially disadvantage young people, and put them at greater risk of commercial sexual exploitation. This knowledge could be beneficial to prevention efforts supporting male adolescents at risk for victimisation by commercial sexual exploitation, and to shed new light on the theoretical understanding of vulnerability to it.

Risk and Protective Factors for Sexual Exploitation in Male and Female Youth From a Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Systematic Review

“…Negative Affect States. Six studies, conducted in the United States, Canada, Greece, and the United Kingdom found risk factors regarding social and emotional problems in male and female youth, such as difficulty forming healthy relationships, interpersonal problems, and negative emotions and affect states (Coy, 2009;Digidiki & Bhabha, 2018;Homma et al, 2012;Macias-Konstantopoulos et al, 2015;Reid et al, 2021;Reid & Piquero, 2016). Two studies analyzed gender differences.…”

“…In all, 10 studies which were all conducted in the United States showed that ethnicity was associated with sexual exploitation. Victims were more often from an ethnic or cultural minority compared to youth who were not sexually exploited (Barnert et al, 2022;Fedina et al, 2019;Reid et al, 2021), such as African American (Franchino-Olsen et al, 2021;Franchino-Olsen & Martin, 2022;Hornor et al, 2022;O'Brien et al, 2017;Reid & Piquero, 2014), Latino (Greeson et al, 2019), or multiracial (Chohaney, 2016).…”