Grubbs JB, et al. – This study was designed not only to evaluate the relationship between addiction to internet pornography (PA) at baseline and other factors, including actual levels of average daily pornography use and personality factors but also to assess the relationships between baseline variables and PA one year later. Findings revealed that perceived addiction to internet pornography seemed to be strongly associated with moral scruples around pornography use, both concurrently and over time, rather than with the amount of daily pornography use itself.

Methods

• For this study, members were adults who had used pornography within the past six months enrolled in 2 samples Sample 1 (N = 1,507) involved undergraduate students from three US universities and Sample 2 (N =782) involved web-using adults.
• Sub-sets of each sample (Sample 1, N = 146; Sample 2, N = 211) were surveyed again 1 year later.

Results

• Cross-sectionally, PA was strongly associated with moral disapproval of pornography use (Sample 1, Pearson's correlation: r = .68, [.65, .70]; Sample 2, r = .58 [.53, .63]).
• Baseline moral disapproval (Sample 1, r = .46, [.33, .56]; Sample 2, r = .61, [.51, .69]) and perceived addiction showed associations with perceived addiction 1 year later.
• Inconclusive evidence of a substantial or significant association was found between pornography use and perceived addiction over time (Sample 1, r = .13, [-.02, .28]; Sample 2, r = .11 [-.04, .25]).