Untersuchung von risikoprognostisch relevanten Faktoren und Aufmerksamkeitsprozessen bei Personen mit normativem und deviantem sexuellen Interesse
by Isabel Müller
Date of Examination:2024-01-23
Date of issue:2024-06-28
Advisor:PD Dr. Kirsten Jordan
Referee:Prof. Dr. Timo Brockmeyer
Referee:Prof. Dr. Margarete Boos
Persistent Address:
http://dx.doi.org/10.53846/goediss-10579
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Abstract
English
Child sexual abuse is associated with far-reaching negative consequences for its victims. With the increasing spread of the internet in recent decades, this no longer takes place exclusively through direct contact, but also increasingly through the consumption of images of abuse. A high number of unreported cases can be assumed for both of the types of offense described above. The presence of a deviant sexual preference is one of the strongest predictors of recidivism to relevant offenses. The valid, reliable and objective assessment of deviant sexual interest is therefore highly relevant from both a risk prognostic and therapeutic perspective. In recent years, forensic psychiatric research has focused on the development of self-report-independent indirect methods for assessing sexual interest. Attention and eye movement processes represent a promising diagnostic approach for this. Using two eye movement paradigms developed at the Department of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University Medical Center Göttingen, individuals with normative and deviant sexual interest could be differentiated with moderate to high sensitivity and specificity. At the same time, more detailed analyses suggested possible deficits with regard to the salience of the sexual stimulus material used for this purpose. For this reason, two modifications of the mental rotation paradigm were carried out as part of an eye-tracking study with changes to the stimulus material and its positioning, and their basic functionality was examined using a sample of healthy, heterosexual male test subjects. Corresponding to previous studies, the modified stimulus material was also able to demonstrate significant distraction effects corresponding to the sexual orientation of the subjects at both the behavioral and eye movement levels. Changes in distractor positioning led in part to stronger but less specific distraction effects. In addition to the existence of sexual deviance, theories on the commission of sexual offenses also point to other factors that negatively influence the risk of committing (further) relevant offenses. There are also indications that these differ between people with different types of offense. However, the generalizability of these findings to outpatient treatment contexts is unclear. As part of a retrospective explorative data analysis of people using an outpatient therapeutic service for the prevention of sexual abuse, the characteristics of various factors relevant to risk prognosis were therefore examined between different offense groups (online offenses, offline offenses, both offense types). It was shown that people with both types of offense have a significantly higher level of offense-supportive cognitions than people who have only committed online offenses. In contrast, other factors relevant to risk prognosis did not show any significant differences between the offense groups. The results of both sub-studies are presented, critically discussed and used to derive approaches for future studies in the forensic psychiatric research context.
Keywords: risk factors; child sexual abuse; child sexual exploitation material; eye tracking; eye movements; deviant sexual interest
