Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Jerrod Brown

Abstract

Child sexual offenders are commonly viewed as some of the worst offenders within North American society, often eliciting responses such as fear, disgust, and moral indignation. The purpose of this quantitative study was to test evolutionary theory’s notion of inclusive fitness by exploring how the relationship between child sexual offenders and victims, as well as victim age affects the public’s emotional responses including fear and aversion. In addition to affective responses, opinions regarding crime severity and length of sentence were also examined. Using a quantitative between-person experimental vignette design, 200 participants were randomly assigned a child sexual abuse case with varying degrees of relatedness between the perpetrator and victim, and varied victim age. Following a review of the vignette, participants were asked to complete a questionnaire measuring feelings of fear, aversion, crime severity, and opinions regarding sentencing in the case reviewed. A Multi-Variate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the data and found no significant differences in perceptions based on degree of relatedness or victim age. While these results were unexpected, several factors are discussed that may have contributed to the outcome. The findings of this study contribute to the body of literature relating to child sexual abuse and reveal an area of research that warrants further exploration as it may encourage positive social change within judicial policy and decision making relating to child sexual assault cases. Furthermore, it may inform the development of educational interventions and initiatives regarding these types of offences and sentencing practices.

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