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Evolutionary Perspectives on 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

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Evolutionary Perspectives on Pedophilia

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  1. Evolutionary Perspectives on Pedophilia

  2. 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

  3. 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?

  4. 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?

  5. 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

  6. 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 Pedophilic sexual preference Child sits on lap Sexual arousal Masturbation R S UR CR

  7. 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)

  8. 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

  9. 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

  10. 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

  11. 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)?

  12. Problem & Applied Solution (2) • Prediction: group X WHR interaction

  13. The Wrap-Up • Diagnostic issues • Etiologies • Conditioning • Biopsychosocial • Evolutionary explanation • Malfunctioning preference module • The role of WHR and an applied solution

  14. Things to Come • Homicide • Research • Evolutionary basis • Risk factors

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