Situational child molesters and their attachment style based on two subscales of the Personality Assessment Inventory

In-depth research is needed in the field of situational child molesters and their attachments for treatment purposes, as the current lack of research on situational child molesters may be putting children at risk. The purpose of this study was to examine if situational child molesters have normal attachments, and to discover if related situational child molesters have weaker attachments compared to unrelated situational child molesters. For the purposes of the study, normal attachments are defined as being able to relate to others and past relationships in a positive way, having the ability to feel empathy towards others, and not being self-centered. Each participant had two scores that were used to assess the significance by two one-sample t-tests. A one-way between MANOVA was used to determine if there was a significant multivariate difference between related and unrelated situational child molesters. Univariate tests were also used to assess the significance of the differences on the two dependent variables, which included scores on the Egocentric and Negative Relationship scales of the PAI. The results revealed that situational child molesters have normal attachments with all t-scores less than 1.19 and all p-scores greater than 0.26. It was also discovered that related situational child molesters do not have weaker attachments compared to unrelated situational child molesters, with the outcome of a p-value of 0.58 on the ANT-E subscale and 0.30 on the BOR-N subscale. This research gives insight for treating clinicians to be able to focus on other aspects for treatment and prevention. In addition, this information can be used for psychologists who test for individuals for recidivism and risk assessment upon release back into society.