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Do Child Molesters Have Aberrant Perceptions of Adult Female Facial Attractiveness? 1
Author(s) -
Marcus David K.,
Cunningham Michael R.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2003.tb01908.x
Subject(s) - psychology , attractiveness , perception , sexual attraction , facial attractiveness , developmental psychology , maturity (psychological) , physical attractiveness , social psychology , clinical psychology , sexual behavior , neuroscience , psychoanalysis
The multiple fitness model (Cunningham, 1986) suggests that attractive adult faces combine youthful neonate features with indications of sexual maturity. But a question can be raised whether the multiple fitness model applies to child molesters. In contrast to prior studies that examined child molesters’ attraction to children, we examined child molesters’ perceptions of adult women. Incarcerated child molesters (N = 68) rated the attractiveness of photographs of 24 adult women. Their ratings were compared with ratings made by 30 heterosexual college men. The 2 groups displayed remarkably similar judgments (r = .91). Child molesters were not more attracted to neonate features compared to other men, nor were they more repelled by maturity features. Like the college men, the child molesters were attracted to faces with large eyes and high cheekbones. Because the multiple fitness model applied to child molesters, differences between the sexual behavior of child molesters and other men do not seem to be attributable to differences in their perceptions of potential adult female partners’ faces.