Citation

Suchy Y, Whittaker WJ, Strassberg DS, Eastvold A. Sex. Abuse 2009; 21(1): 93-110.

Affiliation

University of Utah, Department of Psychology, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0251, USA. yana.suchy@psych.utah.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1079063208326930

PMID

19218480

Abstract

The present study compared facial and prosodic affect recognition abilities among pedophilic and nonpedophilic child molesters and community-dwelling controls. Pedophilic child molesters are characterized by primary sexual interest in prepubescent children, whereas nonpedophilic child molesters are characterized by offending against children despite being primarily sexually attracted to adults. The results showed that nonpedophilic child molesters made more errors in recognizing both facial and prosodic affect, performing more poorly than both controls and pedophilic child molesters. These findings are consistent with greater psychopathic tendencies among nonpedophilic molesters as well as with prior findings of smaller amygdala volume among child molesters.

Language: en