The everyday experience of an institutionalized sex offender: an idiographic application of the experience sampling method.
The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) is a novel assessment strategy that allows random sampling of thoughts, affects, and behaviors. In ESM studies subjects wear beepers that signal at randomly generated, preprogrammed times at which subjects fill out a questionnaire containing items related to current activity, location, thought content, mood states, etc. The ESM was used to examine the relationship between mood states and thought content in a hospitalized sex offender. The patient exhibited a very high frequency of thoughts with sexual content, as well as thoughts indicative of anger against women, personal inadequacy, and distress. He appeared to be a poor judge of his state of optimal well-being. Whereas he considered support from others to be related to optimal well-being, it was actually sexual thoughts about a woman that were associated with his optimal well-being. The present case study illustrates the value of the ESM in the study of complex thought-affect-behavior relationships.
Hillbrand
M
M
Whiting Forensic Institute, Middletown, Connecticut 06457.
Waite
B M
BM
D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000523:psychology; D003134:Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007989:Libido; D008297:Male; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011902:Rape / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology*; D012742:Sex Offenses / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology*; D012725:Sexual Behavior