Psychologists use various methods to attempt to understand the interest and behaviour of a sexual offender. These methods not only help psychologists understand these behaviours, but also show potential for the prediction of these interests and behaviours. Which in turn could lead to possibly treatments for sexual offenders and the prevention of sexual crimes.
Psychologists use cognitive methods to assess and understand the behaviour and the interest of a sexual offender. The focus on cognition, in particular, is derived from the fact that several of the most influential theories of sexual offending consider deviant or abnormal cognitions to play a significant role in both its onset and maintenance.
For example, Ward and Keenan (1999) proposed …show more content…
During the task participants are required to report the colour in which target words are written while ignoring any potential meaning of the word presented. Stimuli found to produce interference within the e-stroop are considered to represent processing biases that the participant has. So the task may be able to prove useful in identifying abnormal sexual interests among child-sex offenders. Smith and Waterman’s (2004) results showed that both violent and sexual offenders demonstrated impaired colour labelling performance during the trials that contained sex-related words compared to the controls, but that sex-offenders experienced the most interference. However, the interference experienced by violent offenders may have been due to the sexual words used within the task having violent connotations which raises the possibility that sex-offenders could be distinguished from violent offenders by using a more selective set of sex-related …show more content…
Hyper-sexuality has been identified as a psychologically meaningful risk factor for sexual offending. In fact, a relatively high proportion of sexual offenders report hypersexual behavior and also seems to be associated with re-offending. Bradford (2013) examined the rate of an objective, behavioral indicator of hyper-sexuality among 586 adult male sexual offenders and to determine the predictive utility of that indicator, using one of the longest follow-up periods used with sexual offenders (up to 20 years). Results showed that approximately 12% of men met the clinical criterion for hyper-sexuality and that the presence of this indicator was significantly associated with long-term sexual and violent
Psychologists use cognitive methods to assess and understand the behaviour and the interest of a sexual offender. The focus on cognition, in particular, is derived from the fact that several of the most influential theories of sexual offending consider deviant or abnormal cognitions to play a significant role in both its onset and maintenance.
For example, Ward and Keenan (1999) proposed …show more content…
During the task participants are required to report the colour in which target words are written while ignoring any potential meaning of the word presented. Stimuli found to produce interference within the e-stroop are considered to represent processing biases that the participant has. So the task may be able to prove useful in identifying abnormal sexual interests among child-sex offenders. Smith and Waterman’s (2004) results showed that both violent and sexual offenders demonstrated impaired colour labelling performance during the trials that contained sex-related words compared to the controls, but that sex-offenders experienced the most interference. However, the interference experienced by violent offenders may have been due to the sexual words used within the task having violent connotations which raises the possibility that sex-offenders could be distinguished from violent offenders by using a more selective set of sex-related …show more content…
Hyper-sexuality has been identified as a psychologically meaningful risk factor for sexual offending. In fact, a relatively high proportion of sexual offenders report hypersexual behavior and also seems to be associated with re-offending. Bradford (2013) examined the rate of an objective, behavioral indicator of hyper-sexuality among 586 adult male sexual offenders and to determine the predictive utility of that indicator, using one of the longest follow-up periods used with sexual offenders (up to 20 years). Results showed that approximately 12% of men met the clinical criterion for hyper-sexuality and that the presence of this indicator was significantly associated with long-term sexual and violent