Non-criminal populations of pedophiles do not exhibit psychopathy or other pathologies.
Associated characteristics
- Wilson, Glenn & Cox, David (1983). The Child-Lovers: A Study of Paedophiles in Society. London: Peter Owen Publishers.
- "The psychoticism score of the paedophiles [in our study] is slightly elevated compared with controls, but not drastically so, and certainly not to the extent that they could be called pathological as a group. There are several occupational groups listed in the Manual that have P[sychoticism] scores of approximately the same order, including actors, apprentices, architects, doctors, drivers, students and welfare officers, none of which could be regarded as clinically psychotic as a whole. Thus, there is no reason on the basis of these results to suppose that men with paedophile sexual preferences are necessarily marked by any exceptional degree of thought disorder. [...]
- The neuroticism scores of the paedophiles are again slightly higher than controls but not to an extent that would justify describing them as clinically abnormal. Among groups of men with similar N[euroticism] scores according to the Manual are actors, apprentices, machinists and students, and a great many of the female groups given in the Manual show N scores that are higher than these male paedophiles. [...]
- Perhaps the most striking thing about these results is how normal the paedophiles appear to be according to their scores on these major personality dimensions - particularly the two that are most clinically relevant (N[euroticism] and P[sychoticism]). The only marked characteristic of the PIE [Paedophile Information Exchange] members with respect to these major dimensions is their tendency to introversion, and this in itself is not usually thought of as pathological. Furthermore, the fact that the Lie Scale scores of the paedophiles are not distinguishable from those of controls would suggest that, overall, they were not bent on creating an artificially favourable impression on the questionnaire, but were giving an honest and accurate self-report. [...]
- Obsessionality, as indicated by this particular item from the EPQ does not seem to be characteristic of the paedophiles; in fact, the proportion endorsing this item is lower than that for controls. [...]
- When all these factors are considered it is clear that the sexual preferences of the paedophile are not so far removed from those of the normal man as they might at first appear."
- Berlin, F. S. (2000). "Treatments to change sexual orientation," The American Journal of Psychiatry, 157, 5.
- "Individuals whose sexual orientation is directed toward children manifest the same range of personality, temperamental, and character traits as individuals whose sexual orientation is directed towards adults."
- Whittaker, J. Wilson (2007). "A comparison of neurocognitive functioning in pedophilic child molesters, nonpedophilic child molesters and normal adult males." Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Utah.
- "Post hoc testing revealed significantly greater psychopathy among nonpedophilic child molesters in comparison to pedophiles on the Psychopathic Deviate Scale (p = .026), and a trend in the regard to the group differences on the Mac-R that suggested nonpedophilic offenders had more severe scores on the Mac-R than did pedophiles. Scores for [community sample] controls fell in between the two groups in regard to psychopathy on both the PDS and the Mac-R (see Table 3). These differences suggest that psychopathic traits were more prevalent among nonpedophilic child molesters (and possibly controls) than among pedophiles. At first blush, this finding appears inconsistent with much of the current literature on pedophiles, who have often been characterized as largely psychopathic (Dorr, 1998; Firestone, Bradford, Greenberg & Serran, 2000). However, there are at least two possible explanations for this discrepancy. First, considering the percentage of our controls with reported substance abuse histories (35%), and who had been incarcerated (26%) (national average is 4.1%) (US Census Bureau, 2005), there is a clear indication that the control group was not an accurate representation of the "normal" population, possibly being more psychopathic than would be expected. Second, pedophiles may actually be less psychopathic than formerly believed. In the previous studies of psychopathy in pedophilia (Dorr, 1998, 2000; Firestone, Bradford, Greenberg & Serran, 2000; Porter et al., 2000) the researchers failed to divide child molesters into pedophilic and nonpedophilic groups. As a consequence, psychopathy may have been a phenomenon factually associated with nonpedophilic offenders and wrongly associated with pedophiles."
Limitations of criminal studies
- Green, R. (2002). "Is pedophilia a mental disorder?," Archives of Sexual Behavior, 31(6), 467-471.
- "A study of general personality features and concurrent psychopathology of pedophiles is hampered by sampling bias. Nearly all studies involve prisoners or those convicted of a criminal offence. These are doubtfully representative of all pedophiles who have contact with children and certainly not representative of pedophiles who confine their eroticism to fantasy and so do not break the law. Finkelhor et al. (1986) observed the following sampling bias in convicted sex offenders: “[They are] a small fraction of all offenders, the most flagrant and repetitive in offending, most socially disadvantaged, and least able to persuade criminal justice authorities to let them off” (p. 138)."
- Okami, P. & Goldberg, A. (1992). "Personality Correlates of Pedophilia: Are They Reliable Indicators?," Journal of Sex Research, 29(3), 297-328.
- Okami and Goldberg systematically reviewed the literature and found that pathology has not been reliably associated with pedophilia. They conclude: "The clearest finding of the present review is that relatively little may be stated about the personality or phenomenology of pedophiles [...] Looking at the very scanty data pertaining to pedophilia per se, then, we are unable to report any reliable findings. [...] as Wilson and Cox (1983) and several others have pointed out, the types of affective and social pathologies associated with samples of pedophiles ... seriously beg the question of causal direction. Guilt feelings, feelings of ostracism loneliness, low self-esteem, etc., clearly are exacerbated by, if not sequelae of, the social condition of pedophiles ... and should not be interpreted as representing etiological variables or intrinsic correlates of sexual preference for children. [...] For example, because an unknown percentage of true pedophiles may never act on their impulses or may never be arrested, forensic samples of sex offenders against minors clearly do not represent the population of "pedophiles," and many such persons apparently do not even belong to the population of "pedophiles.""
- Whittaker, J. Wilson (2007). "A comparison of neurocognitive functioning in pedophilic child molesters, nonpedophilic child molesters and normal adult males." Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Utah.
- "This conceptualization of the role of the frontal lobe as a moderator of sexual behavior is consistent with evidence from neurological injury studies in which frontal lobe damage is associated with generalized hypersexual behavior, rather than the manifestation of new targets of sexual interest (Lesniak, Szymusik, & Chrzanowski, 1972; Sabhesan & Natarjan, 1989; Stein, Solvason, Biggart, & Speigel, 1996; Tavares, 2000). Considered within the context of pedophilia, this suggests that pedophiles with frontal lobe damage may be at greater risk than pedophiles without such damage for acting upon their sexual interests, which increases the likelihood of their committing a crime, and subsequently increases the chance that they will be caught. The authors put forth the supposition that frontal lobe damage in pedophiles may also result in poor planning, difficulties inhibiting perseverative sexual thoughts, low frustration tolerance, inattention and impulsivity. It is argued that these traits would also likely predispose the offender to detection by law enforcement (Cohen et al., 2002; Stone & Thompson, 2001). Consequently, there exists the possibility that neuropsychological weaknesses evidenced in pedophiles may simply be an artifact associated with self-selection bias, such that pedophiles with neurocognitive weaknesses may be more likely to be caught (and therefore available as research participants) than pedophiles with normal neurocognitive function."
