Judging the Misunderstood: A Pilot Public Stigmatism Intervention Towards Non-offending Paedophilia

Public stigmatisation has been identified as a barrier to seeking therapy amongst people with paedophilia (PWP). This study piloted a public stigmatism intervention towards non-offending paedophilia and compared its effectiveness with a public stigmatism intervention towards alcoholism. The overall aim was to reduce self-reported stigmatism towards PWP and assess the comparative effectiveness of the stigmatism intervention towards PWP with the alcoholism stigmatism intervention. A 2x2 mixed effects design was utilised to allow for the comparison of the stigmatism interventions. 80 participants were recruited opportunistically online and were provided with a text-based educational intervention combined with a counter-stereotypical exemplar video. This data was analysed using Bayesian Cumulative Probit Ordinal Regression Models. There was an effect of condition which indicated that stigma inventory scores towards PWP were consistently higher pre-intervention, estimate = 0.44, posterior probability = .99. No other estimates had 95% credible intervals (C.I) which did not include zero, making the results inconclusive. Despite this, the hypothesis distributions indicated that stigma inventory estimates tended towards the hypothesised results. The Perceived Social Distance model indicated that there may have been an effect of the intervention that was unique to the PWP condition although the C.I’s for this hypothesis, and for all others, also included zero. The Social Distance model estimates did not produce any of the hypothesised results and none of the C.I’s included zero. Overall, this study found that a public stigmatism intervention has the potential to change stigmatising beliefs towards PWP and influence the perceived opinions of peers towards PWP. It also contests the proposed differences in PWP and alcoholism social distancing. Notably it provides a tentative first step in the development of a public stigmatism intervention which could potentially increase PWP participation in formal therapeutic services.