The Role of Cognitive Distortions in Maintaining the Pattern of Sexual Violence

Abstract

Distorted judgments supporting commitment of criminal sexual acts are widely used in persons with abnormal sexual behavior and considered by foreign researchers as one of the dynamic risk factors of relapse of sexual crimes against minors. The submitted article is an analytical review of the main foreign research papers on the problem of cognitive distortions in sexual offenders. Various attempts to conceptualize and categorize cognitive distortions are presented with their theoretical and empirical verification, structural characteristics and some features of the development of such distorted judgements. The self-report questionnaires are mainly used in foreign studies of cognitive distortions, also samples of sexual offenders are studied include both persons with sexual disorders and situational offenders. The article shows the necessity of distinguishing between prior and posterior cognitive distortions, as well as self-justification inherent in human nature and distorted judgements that contribute to the commission of criminal acts. It has been suggested that the assessment of cognitive distortions should be carried out not only by unified questionnaires, but using a phenomenological analysis of situational behavior and a retrospective analysis of criminal’s beliefs before the latter committed the incriminated act.