Offense-related interpretative bias in female child molesters: a preliminary study

Although female child molesters are hypothesized to hold offense-supportive cognitions that facilitate their sexual offenses, there have been no implicit social-cognitive studies used to investigate this. Using an implicit memory recognition paradigm, it is shown that female child molesters--relative to female offender controls--are more likely to interpret ambiguous information about males in a threatening manner. These results suggest that female child molesters hold a series of beliefs about men's dangerousness and power. The authors discuss these results and explore the possibility that these beliefs about male dangerousness are related to a risk of abusing children.