Download Pedophilia

Evolutionary
Perspectives on
Pedophilia
What is Pedophilia?
Definition: “child lover” (from the Greek)
 DSM-IV diagnosis
 Min. 6 months, recurrent, intense, sexually
arousing fantasies, urges, or behaviours
involving sexual activity with a
prepubescent child or children
 Causes clinically significant distress or
impairment in functioning
 Person is at least 16 years old and 5 years
older than child

DSM-IV Diagnostic Issues (1)

O’Donohue et al. (2000)
 Is it a mental disorder?
 Unexpectable distress or disability?
 Vague criteria
 “recurrent,” “intense,” “clinically
significant,” non-contact behaviours, 6
month minimum, ego-syntonic
 Trait or behaviour?
DSM-IV Diagnostic Issues (2)

Marshall (1997)
 Fantasies & urges are covert, usually
denied
 Age cutoff of child (13 years)
 Arbitrary
 Does clinician need to verify?
 Post-pubescent, but young, children?
 Juvenile offenders?
An Important Distinction

Child molester vs. pedophile
 Child molestation refers only to overt
behaviour, criminal act
 Some individuals who molest children do
not have a sexual interest in them,
whereas some individuals may have a
sexual interest in children but do not
molest them
Theories of Etiology (1)

Conditioning
 Learned behaviour/preference, since they
themselves were victims or witnessed the
act
 Accidental pairing of deviant stimuli with
sexual arousal leading to reinforcement
Child sits
on lap
S
Sexual
arousal
UR
Masturbation
R
Pedophilic
sexual
preference
CR
Theories of Etiology (2)

Biopsychosocial
 Emotional congruence, sexual arousal to
children, blockage, & disinhibition
(Finklehor, 1984)
 Empathy deficits (Marshall et al., 1995)
 Fraternal order effect, mild mental
retardation, neurological damage
(Blanchard et al., 1998, 2000, 2002)
Evolutionary Perspective (1)


Proximate causes may vary, though most
likely neurodevelopmental in nature
 In utero effect (does not appear to be
fraternal order, though)
 Post-natal brain damage
Ultimate causes, however, are related to male
sexual preferences and modularity
 Men prefer post-pubertal youth cues
Evolutionary Perspective (2)


Secondary sex characteristics that are shared
between children and young women
 Skin smoothness
 Skin tone
 Lustrous hair
 Sprightly gait
They differ, however, on waist-to-hip ratio
Evolutionary Perspective (3)

Quinsey and Lalumière (1995)
 Perhaps youth “detector” modules are
malfunctioning or were not properly
masculinized in utero
 WHR, as a youth cue that differs between
both men and women and between
women and children, may be the key
 Perhaps pedophilic men are
misperceiving a high WHR as sexually
attractive
Problem & Applied Solution (1)

One of the major problems in research and
treatment of child molesters is the
classification of pedophilic preference
 Phallometric measures are susceptible to
faking
 What if the stimuli were more covert (i.e.,
varying the WHR)?
Problem & Applied Solution (2)
Prediction: group X WHR interaction
3.5
Preference Rating

3
2.5
2
Controls
Pedophiles
1.5
1
0.5
0
0.7
0.8
WHR
0.9
The Wrap-Up
Diagnostic issues
 Etiologies
 Conditioning
 Biopsychosocial
 Evolutionary explanation
 Malfunctioning preference module
 The role of WHR and an applied solution

Things to Come

Homicide
 Research
 Evolutionary basis
 Risk factors