Molest Scale

The Molest Scale is supposedly designed to measure the cognitive distortions of child molesters.

Description

"The cognitive distortions of sexual offenders are considered to be influential in the etiology and maintenance of deviant sexual behavior and are commonly accepted as valid predictors of treatment potential and success, despite the lack of systematic research to support these assumptions. Contributing to this gap in the research is the shortage of psychometrically sound assessment techniques to measure these cognitive distortions." "The present paper describes the development and validation of the MOLEST Scales, designed to respectively assess the cognitive distortions of child molesters."

Properties

• 38 items
• "Results indicate that the MOLEST Scales is a promising clinical and research measures, demonstrating strong internal consistency and reliability, convergent and discriminative validity, freedom from a socially desirable response bias, and utility in assessing the efficacy of a cognitive restructuring treatment component."

Sample items

• I believe that sex with children can make the child feel closer to adults.
• When kids don't tell that they were involved in sexual activity with an adult it is probably because they liked it or weren't bothered by it.
• Society makes a much bigger deal out of sexual activity with children than it really is.
• Children who have been involved in sexual activity with an adult will eventually get over it and go on with their lives.
• A lot of times, kids make up stories about people molesting them because they want to get attention.

Criticism

A study found:

• Child molesters endorsed as many cognitive distortions as students.
• Both child molesters and students endorsed significantly more cognitive distortions than rapists and nonsexual offenders.
• Rapists endorsed as many cognitive distortions as nonsexual offenders.

Another study commented:

“

What these scales do measure is for instance people's siding with isolated statements that could inform a vision on comparative penology ("/ think child molesters often get longer sentences than they really should'). Some statements require an endorsement of public consensus, others require knowledge and uncritical endorsement of the minimal scientific proceedings that take young children as subjects, and yet others require absurd forms of moral commensuration ("It is better to have sex with one's child than to cheat on one's wife"). Some statements require an impossible totalizing of public opinion ("Society makes a much bigger deal out of sexual activity with children than it really is"). To "agree" or "strongly agree" with such statements cannot be unambiguously interpreted. Paradoxical or combinatory formulation of items at times makes it impossible to return a meaningful answer ("There is no real manipulation or threat used in a lot of sexual assaults on children"; "Caressing a child's body or genitals usually is not a sexual act" [emphases added]). The frequent absence of neutrality of item formulations (molest, assault, abuse, victim) leads to problems in interpreting test takers' responses. Do test takers agree/disagree with formulation, with vignette scenarios, or with the extreme closure these vignettes accomplish at the level of form? Obviously one cannot measure moral evaluations if one introduces these unilaterally - a problem in fact hovering over the entire research vista of "sexual abuse". Many items simply cannot be meaningfully refuted given their indefinite or conditional formulation ("I believe that sex with children can make the child feel closer to adults" which is obviously correct however one interprets "felt closeness"). Other statements simply seem to require a moral verdict on paraphilic ideation per se, and require tacit compliance to a questionable idea of moral comparability ("Having sexual thoughts and fantasies about a child isn't all that bad because at least it is not really hurting the child'). Finally, some items require offenders to endorse theses for which there is sizable evidence in the literature, but of which the explanation, rather than the veracity, might prove salient ("Children who have sex with adults will have sexual problems when they grow up", which is stated to require a reverse scoring, meaning that endorsement means undistorted cognition).

”