Download coercive sexual behaviour

There are a plethora of theories about rape and sexual coercion, given the central locus of the topic
within gendered relations it should not be surprising to find it is highly controversial as well.
However, it is only one of a number of topics within forensic psychology and is in that sense not
special or unique. That does not detract from the terrible psychological and physical impact of the
assault on the victim, the subsequent impact on their personal horizons in life or the side effects on
their partners, friends and families.
One paper that has examined rape and sexual coercion is Baumeister et al., (2002), it is not recent
and it is not definitive, but that should never stop one considering it as a source of ideas. Baumeister
at al.’s (2002) is just that a rich source of ideas. The review nature of the paper tends to be more
balanced than articles developing theories seeking confirmation of their position and exclusion of
others. Science is never neutral and in an area such as this it is rarely pure in thought and deed.
Baumeister et al., (2002) list the following as features supporting or associated with coercive access
to sex by narcissistic individuals:
Self-serving cognitive distortions
An excessive concern with being admired
An inflated sense of entitlement
Selectively low empathy
Exploitative approach to heterosexual relations
Each of these themes or topics can be expanded easily through other parties’ work. This is
developed below but one should always be mindful of the difficulty of establishing a causal nexus,
forensic issues often have an impasse associated with ethical issues, which prohibit entering
territory where the darker side of human nature is revealed. Psychology and its sister subjects are
forced to examine the issues from the side lines looking into and over cruel experiments of nature
and chance. This lack of objective control makes any estimates of “causal” impact fraught with
uncertainty. It is always too easy to fall into the positive interpretive bias whereby those
characteristics associated with offenders are seen as causal, without effective consideration of the
counter-hypothesis, which would look for the same characteristics in non-offenders, to establish the
causal link, implied by positive proof.
Hall and Fischer (2001) found that for 3 of 4 models of sexual masculinity and rape attitudes there
was a strong correlation with a sense of general and sexual entitlement, even in the 4th model there
was some supporting evidence.
The fact that low empathy is identified as a possible contributory factor for rape is not surprising as
low empathy is a core feature of psychopathic personality disorder and to a lesser extent a
contributory feature in ASPD, which has a lower standard for anti-social and criminal behaviour. The
absence of empathy means that the perpetrator will not only feel entitled to sexual contact but have
little care or regard for the impact that this has on the victim. Some feminists might like to believe
that this view applies to all men, based on the earlier studies of Susan Brownmiller in the classic
textbook Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, which suggests that very distorted views about
women, rape and coercive sex are widely held amongst males in USA colleges, and by implication all
males universally. A significant proportion of men had expressed the view that they would rape
someone if they felt they could get away with it without consequence.
Dietz, Littman and Bentley (1984) were one of the early papers to present evidence that the
observer empathy with regard to rape had a significant influence on attitudes. Participants pre-trial
attitudes to rape was measured with a Rape Empathy Scale (RES). They found clear sex differences
in attitudes pre-trial and they established that empathy scores appeared to moderate the attitudes
towards the offence, offender and victim. Surprisingly people responded less favourably to
unattractive women who tried to fight off their attacker, which curiously indicates they may have
perceived the individual as “lucky” to have an opportunity for intimate contact, which is deeply
disturbing. Low empathy and less concern was expressed about the victim by men and more concern
and greater empathy expressed by women. There is no doubt that there are sex differences in this
area of human conduct but they seem to be sandwiched within this ability or inability to experience
empathy. Dietz et al., (1984) felt that societal attitudes and stereotyping played a significant role in
fostering inappropriate attitudes.
Foubert and Newberry (2006) have shown that attitudes can be changed to increase the empathy of
the perpetrator, and to modify the views held in response to sexual conduct. Although the outcomes
were self-report measures of change it was found that participants reported more empathy toward
rape survivors and reductions in rape myth acceptance, likelihood of raping, and likelihood of
committing sexual assault. Obviously for psychopathic individuals this might reflect a strategic
endorsement of values likely to improve social desirability scores, so it is not genuine.
Smith and Frieze (2003) examined rape victim empathy and perpetrator empathy, using newly
developed scales and found that as in Dietz et al., (1984) women had greater victim empathy than
men, which is curious after the raft of equalities measures introduced and enacted in that era from
1970 through to 2000. Empathy appeared to co-vary negatively with estimates of victim
responsibility, as empathy rose the amount of blame attached to the victim decreased. Victim
responsibility increased with perpetrator empathy. Thus, judges both male and female appeared to
respond to their gendered roles with sex appropriate responses that effectively defended the victim
or the perpetrator. One can imagine that men with lower empathy scores might in certain situations
of disinhibition, as a consequence of alcohol or personality type, attempt coercive sexual contact.
This does not remove the element of personal responsibility but it should make society cognisant of
the source of the risks in societal attitudes (endorsed through the media), the availability of alcohol
and drugs, and the need for special education of men, to try and deter them from inappropriate
action and to foster empathic behaviour wherever possible. Smith and Frieze (2003) found like may
others that women rated higher on victim empathy than men, with empathy co-varying negatively
with responsibility. Blame was essentially inversely proportional to empathy.
Thus, very few studies have examined the possibility of no empathy and the impact it would have on
victimisation.
Ward, Hudson, Johnston and Marshall (1997) developed an integrated review of cognitive
distortions by offenders and their work has continued to advance this theme, which might be partly
related to the fact that it is used as a basis for therapeutic work. Cognitive distortions should be
partly amenable interventions that result in change. Realistically one can imagine that the offender
has put in a lot of cognitive effort and time to build these views and mechanisms, making them quite
resistant to change. There is no doubt that offender seek to justify their inappropriate behaviours in
many cases which suggests that some sex offenders are emotionally disturbed by what they do, as
those dependent on drugs are, but they are equally challenged by the need to change their
problematic behaviour. Ward et al., (1997) suggested that research in the sexual offending domain,
specifically cognitive products, information processing, cognitive change, and the impact of affective
and motivational factors on cognitive processes, were the basis for their model. This combination of
thoughts, feelings and action or cognition, emotion and behaviour is the core of most analytic
models in clinical psychology from which it is derived.
Thus, there is ample evidence that something is awry in terms of social information processing
amongst individuals that commit sexual offences. Ward et al, (1995) felt that there were affective
deficits amongst the sex offending community. They even went as afar as suggesting that
Baumeister's construct of cognitive deconstruction, the process by which people attempt to reduce
the negative implications of self-awareness, provides both a middle-level theoretical explanatory
framework that integrates the psychological issues in sex offending.. Although they tentatively
suggested that the distortion might be a pre-cursor to offending there are few studies prospectively
examining individuals who will later become a sex offender.
Behind many of the studies on empathy for rape victims, blame and responsibility, is the idea that
people make attributions related to causality. Thus, in considering someone being raped it is known
that if the women had been or was in a bar it is often assumed that she was eseentially “fair game”
and she knew what she was there for. This completely unacceptable view persists even now,
because people should accept that people always have a choice, even where intimacy has
commenced or existed in the past. There should be zero tolerance of inappropriate behaviour.
In considering attributions made about rape one can imagine they are sometimes protective.
Women might imagine that it is a particular type of woman that gets rape. This is essentially a selfserving and re-assuring view that suggests that they will not be raped because they are not part of
that group of women, as if such a group exists. The attitudes towards sex workers who are raped is
an extension of that view. Attributions can equally apportion blame and this can be expressed in
views about the type of clothing worn, places frequented and even people with whom the individual
associates. This view was expressed in a murder case with a sexual element where the individual was
carrying a blow-up phallic symbol. No matter what the views on carrying these items in public view
this does not mitigate an assault on the individual. As has been noted above offenders often
produce self-serving justifications and biased views to exonerate themselves from any blame, this is
a part of the social cognition of both offenders and non-offenders. It is simply that in offenders it is
used to justify wholly inappropriate and anti-social acts.
References
Baumeister, Roy F.; Catanese, Kathleen R.; Wallace, Harry M. (2002). Conquest by force: A
narcissistic reactance theory of rape and sexual coercion. Review of General Psychology, 6(1): 92135.
Dietz, S.R., Littman, M., & Bentley, B.J. (1984). Attribution of responsibility for rape: The influence of
observer empathy, victim resistance, and victim attractiveness. Sex Roles, 10 (3-4): 261-280.
Foubert, J.D., & Newberry, J.T. (2006). Effects of two versions of an empathy-based rape prevention
program on fraternity men’s rape survivor empathy, rape myth acceptance, likelihood of raping, and
likelihood of committing sexual assault. Journal of College Student Development.47 (2006): 133-148.
Hall and Fischer (2001). Does entitlement mediate the link between masculinity and rape-related
variables? Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48(1), 39-50.
Smith, C.A., and Frieze, I.H. (2003). Examining Rape Empathy From the Perspective of the Victim and
the Assailant. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33(3): 476–498,
Ward, T., Hudson, S.M., Johnston, L., and Marshall, W.L. (1997). Cognitive distortions in sex
offenders: An integrative review. Clinical Psychology Review, 17(5): 479–507.
Ward, T., Hudson, S.M., & Marshall, W.L. (1995). Cognitive distortions and affective deficits in sex
offenders: A cognitive deconstructionist interpretation. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and
Treatment 7(1): 67-83.