PROFILE ANALYSIS OF THE PERSONALITY-CHARACTERISTICS OF CHILD MOLESTERS USING THE MMPI-2

Identification of child sexual molesters has been attempted for at lea st half a century without success. This is due, in part, to the hetero geneity of child molesters. Child sexual molesters were studied in thr ee ways. First, a discriminant function analysis was conducted to eval uate how well the MMPI-2 would distinguish child molesters from contro ls. Hit rates of 81% and 88% were found for clinical scales alone and the clinical and supplemental scales. respectively Second. a cluster a nalysis of MMPI-2 data identified four groups that resembled clusters found previously with the MMPI. Third. when followed in treatment, all subgroups achieved significant progress ratings and no significant di fference in treatment progress was found between clusters. (C) 1997 Jo hn Wiley & Sons, Inc.