Exploring Hostility Toward Women in High-Risk Rapists: The Relevance of Ambivalence and Relational Experience

Developmental Trajectories Leading to Hostility Toward Women: A Structural Equation Modeling Study

Hostility toward women is frequently examined as a risk factor for violence against women, but research on its antecedents is sparse. The aim of this study was to explore the developmental and psychological antecedents associated with hostility toward women in a Canadian sample of sexual aggressors of women. Drawing on Malamuth's confluence model of sexual aggression, we developed a multifactorial model of hostility toward women, using structural equation modeling. The results indicate the presence of three trajectories, all starting from childhood victimization and leading to hostility toward women, involving antisocial characteristics, emotional negativity, anxiety, and depression.

Relationships Between Early Maladaptive Schemas and Emotional States in Individuals With Sexual Convictions

This study seeks to add to the existing knowledge and available literature on schema therapy elements in forensic inpatient samples. Early maladaptive schemas and emotional states were assessed in Dutch individuals with sexual convictions and compared to individuals with nonsexual violent convictions. Self-ratings of the Young Schema Questionnaire and the Schema Mode Inventory of 95 patients with either convictions for child sexual abuse (N = 30), sexual violence against adults (N = 34), and nonsexual violent convictions (N = 31) were examined using one-way multivariate ANOVAs. Regardless of victim type, forensic patients convicted for sexual offending, and patients with convictions for nonsexual violent offending, seem to make equal use of specific maladaptive cognitive schemas and schema modes during mandated inpatient care. Other studies have shown that people with sexual offense histories are typically characterized by insecure attachment, overvigilance towards women, or a child-like self-concept. Our study indicates that forensic patient in Dutch mandated care may be qualitatively different from typical patients with sexual offense histories and that Dutch patients with violent or sexual offense histories are more similar than they are dissimilar.

Test-retest reliability of a smartphone-based approach-avoidance task: Effects of retest period, stimulus type, and demographics

The approach-avoidance task (AAT) is an implicit task that measures people's behavioral tendencies to approach or avoid stimuli in the environment. In recent years, it has been used successfully to help explain a variety of health problems (e.g., addictions and phobias). Unfortunately, more recent AAT studies have failed to replicate earlier promising findings. One explanation for these replication failures could be that the AAT does not reliably measure approach-avoidance tendencies. Here, we first review existing literature on the reliability of various versions of the AAT. Next, we examine the AAT's reliability in a large and diverse sample (N = 1077; 248 of whom completed all sessions). Using a smartphone-based, mobile AAT, we measured participants' approach-avoidance tendencies eight times over a period of seven months (one measurement per month) in two distinct stimulus sets (happy/sad expressions and disgusting/neutral stimuli). The mobile AAT's split-half reliability was adequate for face stimuli (r = .85), but low for disgust stimuli (r = .72). Its test-retest reliability based on a single measurement was poor for either stimulus set (all ICC1s < .3). Its test-retest reliability based on the average of all eight measurements was moderately good for face stimuli (ICCk = .73), but low for disgust stimuli (ICCk = .5). Results suggest that single-measurement AATs could be influenced by unexplained temporal fluctuations of approach-avoidance tendencies. These fluctuations could be examined in future studies. Until then, this work suggests that future research using the AAT should rely on multiple rather than single measurements.

Grievance-fueled sexual violence

The grievance fueled violence paradigm encompasses various forms of targeted violence but has not yet been extended to the theoretical discussion of sexual violence. In this article, we argue that a wide range of sexual offenses can be usefully conceptualized as forms of grievance fueled violence. Indeed, our assertion that sexual violence is often grievance fueled is unoriginal. More than 40 years of sexual offending research has discussed the pseudosexual nature of much sexual offending, and themes of anger, power, and control – themes that draw clear parallels to the grievance fueled violence paradigm. Therefore, we consider the opportunities for theoretical and practical advancement through the merging of ideas and concepts from the two fields. We examine the scope of grievance in the context of understanding sexual violence, and we look to the role of grievance in the trajectory toward both sexual and nonsexual violence, as well as factors that might distinguish grievance fueled sexual from nonsexual violence. Finally, we discuss future research directions and make recommendations for clinical practice. Specifically, we suggest that grievance represents a promising treatment target where risk is identified for both sexual and nonsexual violence.

Is the Anthropomorphization of Sex Dolls Associated with Objectification and Hostility Toward Women? A Mixed Method Study among Doll Users

Both the ownership and development of sex dolls and robots are passionately debated, with skeptics suspecting that their increasing human-likeness and the accompanying anthropomorphization (i.e., attributing human-likeness) reinforce the objectification of, and hostility toward, women. As empirical data are largely lacking, we scrutinized this hypothesis in a pre-registered study among doll owners (N = 217), comparing two user groups: "toy group" (n = 104; doll as sex toy) and "partner group" (n = 113; doll as partner). We related their objectification tendencies (i.e., seeing women merely as objects, e.g., to promote sexual desire) as well as their hostility toward women, to the anthropomorphization of their doll. Additionally, we collected qualitative data on how participants perceived their doll usage affected their attitudes toward women. The partner group expressed greater levels of hostility and anthropomorphization, moderate in magnitude. Objectification mediated the influence of anthropomorphization on hostility and a higher percentage described a change in attitudes toward women in response to doll use. These data provide the first empirical evidence that the tendency to anthropomorphize dolls is related to negative attitudes toward women. Given the ongoing development of sex robots designed to surpass dolls in human-likeness and anthropomorphization, this finding seems highly significant.