Using behavior-analytic implicit tests to assess sexual interests among normal and sex-offender populations

Abstract

Background The development of implicit tests for measuring biases and behavioral predispositions is a recent development within psychology. While such tests are usually researched within a social-cognitive paradigm, behavioral researchers have also begun to view these tests as potential tests of conditioning histories, including in the sexual domain. Objective The objective of this paper is to illustrate the utility of a behavioral approach to implicit testing and means by which implicit tests can be built to the standards of behavioral psychologists. Design Research findings illustrating the short history of implicit testing within the experimental analysis of behavior are reviewed. Relevant parallel and overlapping research findings from the field of social cognition and on the Implicit Association Test are also outlined. Results New preliminary data obtained with both normal and sex offender populations are described in order to illustrate how behavior-analytically conceived implicit tests may have potential as investigative tools for assessing histories of sexual arousal conditioning and derived stimulus associations. Conclusion It is concluded that popular implicit tests are likely sensitive to conditioned and derived stimulus associations in the history of the test-taker rather than ‘unconscious cognitions’, per se.

Indirect and Neuropsychological Indicators of Pedophilia

“…There are still very few studies, though, that actually compared contact CSOs and child pornography offenders, in particular by means of indirect tests. As one rare exception, Schmidt et al (2014) found no differences between extrafamilial contact CSOs and noncontact CSOs in an aggregated measure of VTs and IAT scores, and tentatively suggested that the two groups show little variance in their sexual preference for children (see also Hempel et al, 2013;Roche et al, 2012). As yet, no study has directly compared contact CSOs and noncontact CSOs by both indirect and neuropsychological tests.…”

The Effects of Social Labels on the Allocation of Resources to Equivalent Stimuli: Does One Rotten Apple Spoil the Whole Barrel?

“…This expectation was confirmed and was bolstered by the finding that English participants who were unfamiliar with the Protestant-Catholic stimuli responded to the C-A relations as would normally be expected from participants who lack such social learning history. Variations of this simple experimental paradigm have produced similar results in a wide variety of contexts (Barnes, Lawlor, Smeets, & Roche, 1996;Dixon, Rehfeldt, Zlomke, & Robinson, 2006;Merwin & Wilson, 2005;O'Reilly et al, 2012;Plaud, 1995;Roche, O'Reilly, Gavin, Ruiz, & Arancibia, 2012;Roche, Ruiz, O'Riordan, & Hand, 2005).…”

Function over Form

“…The FAST has been shown to be capable of detecting relations between laboratory created stimuli and relations (O'Reilly et al, 2012) as well as derived relations (O'Reilly et al, 2013). It has also been used with real world stimuli to measure categorization of teenaged females as sexual (see Roche et al, 2012), but is still in early stages of development.…”