Neurodevelopmental Differences, Pedohebephilia, and Sexual Offending: Findings from Two Online Surveys

Abstract

The neurodevelopmental theory of pedohebephilia states that sexual interests in children arise from early neurodevelopmental perturbations, as, for example, evidenced by increased non-right-handedness, more childhood head injuries, and reduced intelligence and height. As corroborating evidence largely rests on samples of convicted men, we conducted online surveys among German-speaking (Study 1, N = 199) and English-speaking men (Study 2, N = 632), specifically targeting community members with pedohebephilic or teleiophilic interests. Although we detected theoretically meaningful sexual interest patterns in an embedded viewing time task, we could not detect expected neurodevelopmental differences between teleiophilic and pedohebephilic men in either of the two studies. Strikingly, pedohebephilic men who reported convictions for sexual offenses emerged as shorter and less intelligent than pedohebephilic men without convictions in Study 2. While elucidating possible third variable confounds, results have to be interpreted cautiously because of the methodological problems inherent to non-matched case control designs.

Androgens, brain and androgen deprivation therapy in paraphilic disorders: A narrative review

“…Child sexual abusers have decreased thickness in the right motor cortex and pronounced reductions in the surface area of bilateral frontal, temporal, cingulate and insular regions. These findings suggest aberrant neuroanatomy and lower intelligence as a potential core feature underlying the sexually abusive behaviour of paedophiles (Jahnke et al, 2022;Lett et al, 2018). Likewise, lower grey matter volume in the prefrontal or anterior dorsomedial cingulate cortex is associated with a higher risk of re-offending in pedophilic child molesters (Spearman's Rho = À0.408; p = 0.001 (Schiffer et al, 2017).…”

“…Paedophilia refers to sexual attraction to children under the age of 11 approximately; pedohebephilia, to an attraction towards minors between 11 and 14 years old; and pedoephebophilia, to an attraction towards adolescents between 15 and 18-19 years old (Jahnke et al, 2022).…”

Pedophile, Child Lover, or Minor-Attracted Person? Attitudes Toward Labels Among People Who are Sexually Attracted to Children

“…Even though we employed several quality checks, the anonymous nature of the study necessitates a reliance on self-report, which may be faked or inaccurate. However, at least with regard to sexual attraction patterns, previous research shows a high correlation between self-report and indirect measures among online samples of people who are sexually attracted to children (Jahnke et al 2022c ). Lastly, since labels are context-specific, it is unclear how translated versions of the presented labels (or similar terms) would be received by participants who do not speak English.…”

Pedohebephilia and Perceived Non-coercive Childhood Sexual Experiences: Two Non-matched Case-Control Studies

“…Classification based on reaction time data from the embedded VT task led to matching classifications as either pedohebephilic or teleiophilic for 127 out of 150 participants (85%), for which both indirect and direct sexual attraction scores were available (see Jahnke et al, 2022 and appendix for more information on VT procedures in the present studies). Cohen’s kappa (κ = .69) also indicated substantial agreement between the two classification procedures, according to common conventions.…”

“…First, we assessed sexual interests utilizing both self-report and indirect latency-based viewing time (VT) measures ( Schmidt et al, 2017 , see Appendix for a description of procedures) followed by markers for neurodevelopmental differences (e.g., handedness, note that these results are featured in Jahnke et al, 2022 ), the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire ( Wingenfeld et al, 2010 ), a measure of PNCSE-A in their own childhood, and social desirability ( Ray, 1984 ). At the end, we collected a limited set of sociodemographic information, followed by questions about participants' willingness to have sex with children, and former criminal convictions related to child sexual abuse.…”