Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

They Should Know Better: Recognizing Sexual Grooming And Culpability Placement In Adolescents Versus Children, Taylor C. Smith

Student Theses

Sexual grooming is a process used by individuals in order to facilitate sexual abuse with a minor while simultaneously avoiding detection. As many sexual grooming behaviors are used before the perpetration of abuse, the identification of grooming behaviors is integral to child sexual abuse prevention. To date, few studies have researched the identification of sexual grooming behaviors utilized by child molesters and even fewer have examined the identification of those same behaviors utilized on adolescents. This study examined whether the age of the victim (child versus adolescent) affected how well someone can identify sexual grooming behaviors. Five hundred and forty-eight …