Personality characteristics of father/perpetrators and nonoffending mothers in incest families: Individual and dyadic analyses

Abstract

Clinical reports suggest that mothers and fathers in incestuous families exhibit characteristic personality traits. Typically the father/perpetrator is described as powerful and domineering, the mother weak and submissive. The present study examined individual personality characteristics of 65 nonoffending mothers and 94 father/perpetrators, and used canonical correlations and multiple regression analyses to examine patterns of personality traits occurring in 63 pairs of fathers and mothers in which there was acknowledged child sexual abuse by the fathers. At the individual level, a minority of both mothers and offenders differed from norms on traits reflecting social inadequacy, but no personality deviations were prototypical in either group. At the dyadic level, no evidence for a pervasive “dominant-submissive” pairing was found. Results indicated that father/perpetrator traits tended to be similar to traits of nonoffending mothers. Forensic, clinical, and research implications of the findings are discussed.