Maddock, Meghan E., Kaitlin Steele, Charlotte R. Esplin, S. Gabe Hatch, and Scott R. Braithwaite.
Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity (2019): 1-28.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10720162.2019.1645061
ABSTRACT
Previous studies suggest that religious people are more likely than nonreligious people to perceive their pornography use as problematic. For our 6-month longitudinal study, we recruited a sample of adults from TurkPrime.com to examine whether the interaction of religiosity and pornography consumption prospectively predicts more depressive symptoms 6 months later and whether this effect was mediated via perceptions that their pornography use was problematic (measured 3 months postbaseline). We constructed and validated our own measure of self-perceived problematic pornography use that included two factors: excessive pornography use and compulsive pornography use. Contrary to our hypothesis, religiosity was not related to self-perceived problematic pornography use. For men, religiosity at baseline was associated with increased pornography use at 6 months. For both men and women, excessive pornography use at 3 months was associated with increased depression at 6 months. For men, depression at baseline was associated with self-perceived problematic pornography use at 3 months. For women, higher self-perceived problematic pornography use at 3 months predicted lower frequency of pornography use and higher depression at 6 months. Our findings are discussed in light of theories of depression, religious incongruence, and sexual scripts.
Discussion
In this study, we examined the relationships among religiosity, pornography use, depressive symptoms, and self-perceived problematic pornography use, defined here as self-perceived excessive use and self-perceived
compulsive use, over 6 months. We hypothesized that more religious people would be more likely to perceive themselves as using pornography in a problematic way and that people who reported self-perceived problematic pornography use at 3 months would report more depressive symptoms at 6 months.
Religiosity and self-perceived problematic pornography use
Neither religiosity nor the interaction between religiosity and pornography use at baseline predicted self-perceived problematic pornography use at 3 months. We therefore conclude that, in this sample, more religious people who viewed pornography were about equally as likely as less religious people who viewed pornography to view themselves as using pornography excessively or compulsively. This finding is inconsistent with previous cross-sectional studies that found that religious people are more likely than nonreligious people to perceive themselves as using pornography excessively or as addicted to pornography (Bradley et al., 2016; Grubbs, Exline et al., 2015). It may be that religiosity and self-perceived problematic pornography use are related cross-sectionally, but that religiosity does not predict self-perceived problematic pornography use over time.
Our measure of religiosity is behavioral, with two of the three questions asking about specific religious behaviors (prayer and church attendance). Measures of religiosity that focus less on religious behaviors and more on religious identity or affiliation with specific denominations may have a relationship with self-perceived problematic pornography use. As different religious denominations teach differently about pornography, with some teaching against pornography and other denominations being more accepting of pornography (Patterson & Price, 2012; Sherkat & Ellison, 1997), members of denominations that teach against pornography use may be more likely to experience self-perceived problematic pornography use. Future studies of religiosity and attitudes about pornography should consider that identifying or affiliating with specific religions might be a more salient measure of religiosity than a measure of more general religious behavior, such as the one we used here.
According to Perry’s (2017a,b) religious incongruence theory, religious people who use pornography experience increased distress related to pornography use and are more likely to view their pornography use as problematic not simply because they are religious but because they believe that using pornography is morally wrong. It is possible that more religious people in our sample did not believe that using pornography is morally wrong, did not experience religious incongruence, and were therefore no more likely than less religious people to report self-perceived problematic pornography use. However, the archival data that we used did not contain information about participants’ beliefs about whether pornography use is morally acceptable, so this explanation is speculative.
The lack of relationship between religiosity and self-perceived problematic pornography use in our study is surprising. Though we used an ordinal scale of religiosity, the distribution of religiosity in our sample was somewhat bimodal (see Figure 3 for a histogram). It is possible this distribution of religiosity in this sample influenced our analysis, and that results would be different in a sample where religiosity followed a normal distribution. Whatever the reason, in this sample religiosity and self-perceived problematic pornography use were unrelated.
Religiosity and frequency of pornography use
Religiosity at baseline predicted frequency of pornography use 6 months later for males, but not for females, suggesting that men’s pornography use, but not women’s, is affected by religiosity. This finding is consistent with research by Perry and Schleifer (2017) that found that pornography use was related to religiosity only for White men and not for men of color or for women. In our sample, more religious men were more likely to use pornography, although other research has found that more religious men are less likely to view pornography (Perry & Schleifer, 2017; Short, Kasper, & Wetterneck, 2015) or that religiosity is not related to pornography use (Goodson, McCormick, & Evans, 2000). The bivariate correlation between baseline religiosity and frequency of pornography use at 6 months was positive for males (r¼.21, see Table 6 for all correlations between variables), suggesting that suppression is an unlikely explanation (Maassen & Bakker, 2001). The reasons that, for men, higher religiosity predicted increased frequency of pornography use are unclear, given that many religions teach against pornography use (Sherkat & Ellison, 1997). It is possible that more religious men used pornography as a substitute for partnered sexual behaviors because they considered it more morally acceptable. Future research should consider that religiosity may be more likely to influence pornography use in men than in women and that in some samples religiosity and pornography use may be positively related.
According to our model, there was no relationship between baseline self-reported time spent using pornography and feeling that one views pornography excessively or compulsively at 3 months. Perceptions of excessive pornography use and of compulsive pornography use are not necessarily related to the amount of time an individual spends viewing pornography. People may view themselves as using pornography excessively or compulsively while spending little time viewing pornography, and people who spend relatively much time viewing pornography might not believe that they view pornography excessively or compulsively (Gola et al., 2016). This result replicates previous findings that frequency of pornography use and self-perceived problematic pornography use are distinct constructs (Grubbs, Wilt, Exline, Pargament, & Kraus, 2018; Grubbs et al., 2010; Vaillancourt-Morel et al., 2017).
Self-perceived problematic pornography use and depressive symptoms
Men who reported more depressive symptoms at baseline were more likely to use pornography excessively at 3 months and then to report more depressive symptoms at 6 months. This finding makes temporal precedence of excessive use and depressive symptoms difficult to establish, but is consistent with research that suggests that self-perceived excessive use of pornography is related to depression (Grubbs, Stauner et al., 2015). The finding that men who reported more depressive symptoms at baseline were more likely to endorse problematic pornography use at 3 months and then to report more depressive symptoms at 6 months is consistent with Joiner’s theory of depression, which posits that people who feel depressed tend to engage in behaviors that perpetuate and worsen their depression (Joiner, Metalsky, Katz, & Beach, 1999; Joiner & Metalsky, 1995). Men who have more depressive symptoms may be more likely to use pornography in ways that they perceive as problematic and then to experience increased depressive symptoms as a result.
The relationship between self-perceived problematic pornography use and depressive symptoms was more straightforward in women, as depressive symptoms at baseline did not predict excessive pornography use or compulsive pornography use at 3 months. Our findings suggest temporal precedence of self-perceived problematic pornography use before increased depressive symptoms in women. In other words, women who reported depressive symptoms at baseline were not more or less likely to report self-perceived problematic pornography use at 3 months, but women who reported higher self-perceived problematic pornography use at 3 months reported more depressive symptoms at 6 months. Women who use pornography in ways that they perceive as problematic probably do not do so because they already have depressive symptoms. Likewise, excessive pornography use at 3 months predicted higher depressive symptoms at 6 months for males, consistent with previous findings that feeling that one uses pornography excessively is related to feelings of depression (Corley & Hook, 2012; Grubbs, Stauner et al., 2015; Patterson & Price, 2012; Perry, 2017b).
Self-perceived problematic pornography use and frequency of pornography use
Women who reported higher self-perceived problematic pornography use at 3 months reported less pornography use at 6 months. Self-perceived problematic pornography use did not predict frequency of pornography use in men, contrary to previous research that found that self-perceived problematic pornography use predicts increased pornography use over time in adolescent men (Kohut & Stulhofer, 2018). Women who perceived their pornography use to be problematic may have reduced the frequency of their pornography consumption. Although this explanation is speculative, it is in line with sexual script theory, which posits that sexual behaviors are influenced by scripts or patterns that people learn from societal norms, media, and personal experiences (Gagnon & Simon, 1973). Sexual scripts can be gendered, with women expected to be generally less sexual than men, more cautious in engaging in sexual activity, and less interested in pornography (Garcia & Carrigan, 1998; Wiederman, 2005). According to sexual script theory, women who perceive their pornography use as problematic are likely to experience conflict between gendered cultural sexual scripts and their behavior and may change their behavior to be in line with the cultural sexual script. Gendered sexual scripts might explain why women, but not men, who believed that their pornography use was problematic reported decreased frequency of pornography use 3 months later.
Frequency of pornography use over time
Frequency of pornography use at baseline predicted frequency of pornography use at 6 months for women, but not for men. It is possible that the stability of pornography use would not be significantly different between men and women over a longer period of time, but within our 6-month time lag, past pornography use was the best indicator of future pornography use for women. Males’ less stable pornography use may suggest somewhat more of an episodic or situation-dependent relationship with pornography use. These findings could be explained by Seidman’s (2004) description of how males typically use pornography in solitude accompanied by masturbation. Males’ situation-dependent use could be a result of only using pornography when they know they will be alone. Seidman’s results described females’ pornography use as being more relational in nature, indicating that females’ pornography use is more tied to their partnered sexual relationship (Seidman, 2004). Given the stability of female’s pornography use, it may be more appropriate to label pornography use as “trait-like” for females—an integral part of personality and makeup. For males, pornography use tends to wax and wane and is not indicative of an overall trait.
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