Body or behavior? Exploring the relative roles of physical versus behavioral indicators of age in mating contexts in pedophiles and teleiophiles (23-06662S)
Basic information
Investigator: MSc. Kateřina Klapilová Ph.D.
Main recipient: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Research period: 1/1/2023 - 31/12/2025
Total budget: 5,556,000 CZK
Supported by: Czech Science Foundation (GAČR)
Annotation
Pedophilia is a rare paraphilia affecting approximately 1% of the population. Its main feature is the sexual and dyadic preference for prepubertal children. Despite more than 100 years of research, the etiology of pedophilia remains unclear. This project aims to investigate whether child-typical behaviors play an important role in the sexual salience of pedophiles, similar to the role of adult-typical courtship behavior in teleiophiles (i.e., attraction to adult). Our first experiment will examine the role of child-typical behavior relative to child-typical body features in eliciting pedophilic sexual arousal. The second experiment will examine how pedophiles (compared to teleiophiles) interpret and react to typical courtship, neutral, or rejective behaviors of adult women. A unique feature of this project is i) the exploitation of novel techniques allowing to create avatars with realistic appearances and non-verbal behaviors for experimental manipulation, ii) the recruitment of pedophiles highly variant in risk of sexual offending.