Hook, Celeste
Primed for Porn, Investigating the Nuanced Relationship Between Problematic Pornography Consumption and Impulse Control
Faculty Mentor: Scott Braithwaite, PhD., Psychology Department
Introduction
As pornography becomes infinitely more accessible through the internet, the number of
consumers increases at a rapid rate. Pornography abuse is shown to be a subcategory
of hypersexuality (Grubbs, Volk, Exline, & Pargament, 2015), which is defined in the
DSM-V as “a repetitive and intense preoccupation with sexual fantasies, urges, and
behaviors, leading to adverse consequences”. Hypersexual behaviors have been linked
to poorer impulse control (Miner et al., 2009; Prause, Steele et al., 2015; Reid, Cooper,
Prause, Li, & Fong, 2012), and poorer impulse control has been related to many
addictive behaviors such as substance abuse (Hardy, Steelman, Coyne, & Ridge, 2013;
Yau, Potenza, & White, 2013). Additionally, pornography abuse itself has been
categorized as an addictive behavior. While it has been found that more time spent
indulging in this material is related to a lesser ability to self-regulate, the evidence
supporting this association is only preliminary and moderators of this relationship have
yet to be directly examined. Furthermore, evidence suggests that the relationship
between pornography consumption and the psychological distress resulting from one’s
perceived addiction to pornography may be moderated by one’s cognitive and affective
evaluation of their consumption, not solely their frequency of consumption (Grubbs et
al., 2015).
The present research aims to advance our understanding of these relationships over
the course of two studies. Study 1 examined the association between problematic
pornography consumption (based on frequency of viewing) and self control using selfreport
responses, hypothesizing that the odds of problematic pornography consumption
(PPC) will increase as impulsivity increases. Once this association was established, we
performed a second study using measurements of relevant demographic variables,
level of pornography consumption, hypersexuality, perceived addiction to pornography,
proneness to guilt, religious commitment, and both subjective and objective measures
of impulse control, to gain a better understand of the relationship between PPC and
impulse control. This includes how objective measures and personal evaluations of PPC
and impulsivity differ, what factors may be responsible for these differences, and if
stimuli (primes) of a sexual nature included in the objective measure of impulse control
influence self-regulation differently in those with PPC. A better understanding of the
complexities of these relationships will allow clinicians to better assist those coping with
distress related to PPC.
Methodology
The first study used archival data from Project Relate, a data collection effort at Florida
State University. This sample consisted of 980 young adult volunteers, 303 males
(31%), 671 females (68%), and 6 unidentified (<1%). We examined survey items
relevant to the relationship between impulsivity and PPC. PPC was defined as viewing
porn at least once a day, and was analyzed as a binary response (1 = PPC; 0 = nonPPC).
The independent variable of interest was impulsivity. We used a logistic
regression analysis to determine how impulse control predicts PPC, while controlling for
gender and religious importance.
In the second study, participants were gathered through Amazon’s MTurk and directed
via link to a Qualtrics survey. This survey included relevant demographic questions
(e.g., gender), a go/no-go task to objectively measure impulse control (incorporating
primes of a sexual and non-sexual nature), along with a subjective measure of
impulsivity, and measures of pornography consumption, religious commitment, guilt
proneness, hypersexuality, perceived addiction to pornography, motivations for viewing
pornography, and depression. This study used both researchers’ definition of PPC, as
well as the subjects personal evaluation of how problematic their pornography
consumption is, to look at how these measures relate to the participants’ subjective and
objective measures of impulsivity, and will evaluate how other included variables
influence this relationship. This will be done using a combination of regression and
structural equation modeling (SEM).
Results
From the logistic regression analysis, we found that impulsivity significantly predicted
PPC (p = .046). For each one unit increase on the impulsivity scale, the odds of PPC
increased by 7.41% [95% CI (0.13, 15.22)], after accounting for gender and religious
commitment. There was convincing evidence that gender is a significant predictor of
PPC (p < .0001), with females being 97.53% less likely to qualify for PPC [95% CI
(80.75, 99.68)]. Religious importance did not significantly predict PPC (p = 0.34).
The data from the second study are currently under analysis, with the following
hypotheses:
1. Those with high PPC related distress will subjectively report less impulse control, but
may not show objective differences in inhibitory control.
2. Factors accounting for differences between those with PPC related distress and
those with PPC without related distress will be gender, relationship status, impulsivity,
religious commitment, proneness to guilt, hypersexuality, and depression.
3. Response times and errors of commission in the go/no-go task will be different
between sexual stimuli and threat stimuli for those with PPC.
Discussion
The purpose of this project was to thoroughly investigate various factors involved in the
relationship between problematic pornography consumption and impulse control. The
results from the first study established impulsivity as a significant predictor of PPC, as
hypothesized. While analyzing these data we also found gender to be a significant
explanatory variable, with males being close to 100% more likely to have PPC.
To expand on these findings, the second data collection effort delved into various
potential moderating variables involved in this relationship, including gender, religion,
guilt, hypersexuality, motivations for pornography consumption, and depression. The
analysis also evaluated a subjective and objective measure (with sexual and non-sexual
primes) of impulse control, and both a frequency based and a personal-evaluation
based measure of PPC. The information gained from these measures will illuminate
complexities of the relationship between impulse control and PPC, and will determine
what factors drive individual differences between perceived and objective PPC, as well
as whether sexual primes predict less inhibitory control in those with PPC. This will
provide clinicians with information not currently available in order to administer better
treatment for psychological distress related to PPC, and to assist their patients in
avoiding primes that may lead to participation in the undesired behavior and its resulting
distress. This knowledge will also provide researchers with a springboard for further
investigation, in which determining the direction of causality in the association between
impulse control and PPC will be necessary.