Public Attitudes

Many members of the FCRG engage in research examining the public’s (as well as professional’s) attitudes towards people who have offended, people who have a stigmatised sexual interest, or people who have engaged in gambling behaviours.

Recent published studies in this topic area include:

• Rawson, L., Hermens, F., Onwuegbusi, T., & Hogue, T. E. (2024). The construct validity of attitudes toward sex offenders (ATS) scale: ATS is more strongly linked to the acceptance of sex offenders than other offenders or non‐offenders. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. Open Access

• Lehmann, R. J., Jahnke, S., Bartels, R., Butzek, J., Molitor, A., & Schmidt, A. F. (2024). Public stigmatizing reactions toward nonoffending pedophilic individuals seeking to relieve sexual arousal. The Journal of Sex Research, 61(7), 1119-1129.

• Roberts, A., Murphy, R., McNally, E. J., Derevensky, J., & Sharman, S. (2022). Teacher attitudes towards and awareness of adolescent gambling behavior in the UK. International Gambling Studies, 1-25.

• Hartley, M., & Bartels, R. M. (2022). Public perception of men who have committed intrafamilial and extrafamilial sexual offences against children. Sexual Abuse, 10790632211062188. – Open Access

• Maroño, A., & Bartels, R. M. (2020). Examining the judgments of pedophiles in relation to a non-sexual offense. Psychology, Crime & Law, 26(9), 887-901.

• Hogue, T. E., & Harper, C. A. (2019). Development of a 21-item short form of the Attitudes to Sexual Offenders (ATS) Scale. Law and Human Behavior, 43(1), 117.

Recent poster presentations related this area include: 

Impact of Risk Assessment, Media, and Offender’s Characteristics on Lay People’s Fairness in Judgement of Terrorist Offenders   (Singh & Onwuegbusi, 2022)