Examining the Use of Self-Disclosures and Negative Emotion Words Between Contact and Noncontact-Driven Online Grooming Offenders in Spain

• In Event: Grooming and child sexual abuse

Abstract

Child sexual exploitation and abuse are facilitated by technological advancements, including social media and gaming platforms, all of which enable online child sex offenders to chat simultaneously with any number of children, anywhere, at any time. These offenders engage in grooming whereby an adult uses deceptive trust and friendship formation to lure a child into engaging in sexual behaviors. Offenders use self-disclosures as a specific grooming tactic to build trust by sharing personal experiences and emotions. The current research study examined the use of self-disclosures and emotion words as a grooming strategy in 65 chats between children and contact or noncontact-driven offenders in Spain; 71% (n = 46) were classified as noncontact-driven and 29% (n = 19) were contact-driven. We manually coded the chats for Bednarek’s (2008) affect system for the expression of emotions then applied an additional layer to examine directionality (i.e., positive or negative) and expressed state (i.e., hypothetical or personal experience; Braun & Clarke, 2022). As expected, we found linguistic differences between contact and noncontact-driven offenders on self-disclosures. In general, contact-driven offenders shared more self-disclosures and used more emotion words, with a preference for negative emotions. When examining affect sub-type, contact-driven offenders used more negative emotion words expressing unhappiness, misery, and antipathy. Contact-driven offenders showed a propensity for “other-blaming,” where they blamed their sadness on the victim’s behavior. For self-blame, contact offenders sought more positive emotional support or reinforcement from the victim through reciprocation. Interestingly, only NCOs used self-disclosure tactics to induce pity or commiseration and were twice as likely to use displeasure expressions (e.g., dissatisfaction). Additional linguistic differences in self-disclosures will be discussed as well as future research suggestions and study limitations. Overall, the authors conclude that the use of self-disclosures and negative emotion words distinguish between noncontact and contact-driven online grooming offenders in Spain.

Authors

• Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar, Purdue University

• Virginia Soldino, Universitat de València

• Sergio Maruenda, Univeristy of Valencia