Development and psychometric evaluation of the sex fantasy questionnaire

Includes bibliographical references (pages [96]-104)Several theories regarding the etiology and maintenance of paraphilic behavior implicate deviant fantasizing as a primary factor. In addition, several treatment techniques incorporate fantasy alternation and alteration. Yet standardized measures of deviant (i.e., paraphilic) sexual fantasy are few, and those which exist appear inadequate regarding different aspects of their reliability and validity as measures of paraphilic fantasy material. The present study attempted to address this inadequacy. The purpose of this study was to develop a sexual fantasy questionnaire (the SFQ) which specifically targets paraphilic as well as non-paraphilic fantasies. A second goal of this study was to examine some of the psychometric properties of this sex fantasy questionnaire. Specifically, test-retest reliability, internal consistency, and construct, content, and convergent validities will be assessed. These goals were accomplished by administering the sex fantasy questionnaire to male sex offenders (inmates and out-patients) as well as a convenient comparison group of male college students. Subjects were administered the sex fantasy questionnaire on two occasions, in order to allow for estimation of the SFQ’s reliability. Additionally, comparisons were made between and within the different subject groups in order to estimate different types of the SFQ’s validity. Results indicated good internal consistency (mean alpha = .82) and good test-retest reliability (mean coefficient = .84). Evidence for the criterion validity of this measure was supported by the finding that child molesters scored significantly higher than normal controls on the child fantasy scale. Inmate offenders scored significantly higher than outpatient offenders or controls. Additionally, several hypotheses were generated regarding the relative scores of the three different groups based on sexual fantasy literature. Child molesters did not report more fantasies of sexual dysfunction and did report a similar number of normal fantasies as the normal controls. Inconsistent with some recent findings, convicted pedophiles did not report multiple-paraphilic fantasies.M.A. (Master of Arts