Heterosocial perception in rapists.

This research explored the hypothesis that rapists are selectively deficient in their ability to process interpersonal cues from women, especially negative cues. A measure of heterosocial cue-reading accuracy was administered to 11 volunteer subjects in each of three groups of white male inmates from a federal prison: rapists, violent nonrapists, and nonviolent nonrapists. Rapists were significantly less accurate than subjects in either control group when reading cues in simulated first-date interactions; violent nonrapists, in turn, were less accurate than nonviolent nonrapists. Rapists were especially deficient in reading women's cues. Errors associated with negative cues accounted for the largest proportion of variance in these effects. All subjects had more difficulty reading men's cues than women's cues. The demonstration of specific deficits in social cue-reading abilities, or decoding skills, among white inmates with histories of rape is consistent with a social information-processing analysis of rape behavior. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)