title: Interpreting child sexual abuse: the impact of victim response.
abstract: There is little empirical knowledge about whether the interpretation process of child sex offenders is offense-supportive in nature and contributes to the offending process. Vignettes were developed to compare child sex offenders' and nonoffenders' interpretations of child molestation incidents after ambiguous and nonambiguous victim responses. Results showed that child sex offenders' (N = 60) interpretations did not differ from nonoffenders' (N = 40) interpretations. Overall, the more ambiguous the child responses, the more child complicity and child benefit was seen. Our results indicate that offense-supportive interpretations are not unique to child sex offenders. The mechanisms that are responsible for whether or not to commit a sexual offense should be unraveled and treated, to prevent deviant processes to be activated.
authors.affiliation: a Erasmus University Medical Center , Rotterdam , the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Inge Sarah
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Hempel
authors.forename: Nicole Maria Leonarda
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Buck
authors.forename: Hjalmar Johan Carel
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: van Marle
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000523:psychology*; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000523:psychology*; D057237:Criminals / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male
keywords: child sex offenders; child sexual abuse; interpretation process; offense-supportive cognitions; sex offending