To help understand and provide treatment programs suited to the needs of sex offenders more study is needed with respect to their personality characteristics. Three factors were examined: dissociation, locus of control, and alienation. Three groups of men were compared: 42 sex offenders, 26 nonsex offenders, and 42 men from a community control group. The MMPI subscales for alienation and the K scale, Bernstein and Putnam's dissociation scale, and Ried and Ware's multidimensional locus of control measure were combined and administered to the three groups. The sex offenders were found to be more dissociated than the other two groups, more external on the overall measure of locus of control and more external than the community group on the subscale of self-control. The sex offenders were found to be more alienated than the other two groups. Implications for treatment and further research are discussed.
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