A Study of Heterosexual and Homosexual Pedophiles Using Parallel Forms Cattell’s 16PF

Abstract

The present research uses the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire of Cattell and Eber (1974) to find the different traits that could eventually establish a characteristic profile of pedophilia: homosexual and heterosexual. The statistical analyses are the results of three subject groups (N = 120): 30 heterosexual pedophiles; 30 homosexual pedophiles selectioned with the help of penile plethysmography, registered to a sexology clinic for deviant behavioral problems and 30 voluntary people recruited from the general public form the control group. The t-tests do not show any significant difference between the two groups of pedophiles; although a number of differences is noticed between the control group and the two clinical groups. The two deviant groups have the image of the personality which follows the same profile with a few particular differences associated to the sexual orientation.