Press coverage as a heuristic guide for social decision-making about sexual offenders (original) (raw)
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Reducing Stigma and Punitive Attitudes Toward Pedophiles Through Narrative Humanization
Sexual abuse : a journal of research and treatment, 2016
Stigmatization and societal punitiveness about pedophilia have a range of potential consequences, such as the social isolation of people with sexual interest in children, and the formation of policies that are not consistent with empirical research findings. Previous research has shown that people with pedophilic sexual interests use societal thinking to self-stigmatize, which in turn may actually serve to increase their risk of committing a sexual offense. In this study, we compared two attitudinal interventions (first-person narrative vs. expert opinion) using a student sample (N = 100). It was hypothesized that both interventions would lead to reductions in stigmatization and punitive attitudes about pedophiles on an explicit (self-report) level but that only the narrative intervention would lead to reductions of these constructs at the implicit level. Our findings supported both hypotheses. We further discuss the role of narrative humanization in this area and offer suggestions ...
Humanizing Pedophilia as Stigma Reduction: A Large-Scale Intervention Study
Archives of Sexual Behavior
The stigmatization of people with pedophilic sexual interests is a topic of growing academic and professional consideration, owing to its potential role in moderating pedophiles’ emotional well-being, and motivation and engagement in child abuse prevention schemes. Thus, improving attitudes and reducing stigmatization toward this group is of paramount importance. Prior research has suggested that narrative humanization—presenting personal stories of self-identified non-offending pedophiles—could be one route to doing this. However, this work has only been conducted with students or trainee psychotherapists, meaning the public generalizability of this method is still unknown. In this study, we compared two stigma interventions to test whether narratives reduce stigma toward people with pedophilic interests more effectively than an informative alternative (scientific information about pedophilia). Using a longitudinal experimental design with a lack of non-intervention control (initia...
2021
Attitudes toward individuals with sexual convictions play a major role in the formation of legislative action, including sentencing policies and registration and notification procedures. However, there is little research about stigmatization directed at those who are accused of such offenses prior to conviction. In this work we explored this gap by comparing stigmatization towards people accused of sexual offending in comparison to other offense categories, and whether this was further impacted by whether allegations led to a conviction. We recruited 403 community-based participants for a between-subjects experimental survey. We found support for the conclusion that people accused of and convicted for sexual offenses are more heavily stigmatized than allegations related to other crime types, and especially so when allegations involved child victims. Stigmatization took the form of greater levels of support for police-initiated notifications about allegations before conviction, incre...
Stigmatization of people with pedophilia: two comparative surveys
Archives of sexual behavior, 2015
Despite productive research on stigma and its impact on people's lives in the past 20 years, stigmatization of people with pedophilia has received little attention. We conducted two surveys estimating public stigma and determining predictors of social distance from this group. In both studies, pedophilia was defined as a "dominant sexual interest in children." The survey was comprised of items measuring agreement with stereotypes, emotions, and social distance (among others). Responses were compared with identical items referring to either people who abuse alcohol (Study 1), sexual sadists or people with antisocial tendencies (Study 2). Study 1 was conducted in two German cities (N = 854) and Study 2 sampled 201 English-speaking online participants. Both studies revealed that nearly all reactions to people with pedophilia were more negative than those to the other groups, including social distance. Fourteen percent (Study 1) and 28 % (Study 2) of the participants agree...
Archives of sexual behavior, 2015
In the present research, we addressed the question of whether people harbor punitive attitudes against individuals sexually interested in children even if no sexual offense is mentioned and whether this effect is amplified by the clinical label pedophilia. In two online studies (total N = 345), participants rated the extent to which they saw individuals sexually interested in children as necessarily committing child sexual abuse (dangerousness), responsible for their sexual interest (intentionality), and clinically disordered (deviance) before judging their endorsement of means of punishment (punitive attitudes). Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions in which either the "pedophilia" label or the descriptive term "sexual interest in (prepubescent) children" was included in all items. Across both studies, results showed high degrees of punitive attitudes against sexually deviant men, an effect that was particularly pronounced if the pedophili...
What's in a Name? Evaluating the Effects of the “Sex Offender” Label on Public Opinions and Beliefs
Particularly over the past two decades, the terms sex offender and juvenile sex offender (JSO) have attained increasingly common usage in media and public policy discourse. Although often applied as factual descriptors, the labels may evoke strong subconscious associations with a population commonly presumed to be compulsive, at high risk of re-offense, and resistant to rehabilitation. Such associations, in turn, may exert considerable impact on expressions of support for certain policies as well as public beliefs and opinions about adults and youth who have perpetrated sexual offenses. The current study systematically evaluated the impact of the “sex offender” and “JSO” labels through series of items administered to a nationally stratified and matched sample from across the United States. The study employed an experimental design, in which one group of participants (n = 498) ranked their levels of agreement with a series of statements utilizing these labels, and a control group (n = 502) responded to a matched set of statements substituting the labels with more neutral descriptive language. Findings support the hypothesis that use of the “sex offender” label strengthens public support for policies directed at those who have perpetrated sexual crimes, including public Internet disclosure, residency restrictions, and social networking bans. The “JSO” label is demonstrated to produce particularly robust effects, enhancing support for policies that subject youth to public Internet notification and affecting beliefs about youths’ propensity to re-offend as adults. Implications for public policy, media communication, and research are explored and discussed.