Abstract
Pornography use is fairly common in today's society, which suggests that one or even both partners of many couple relationships may use pornography. Persons with high or low levels of differentiation of self may experience relationship attachment and sexual satisfaction differently depending on their partner's pornography use. On one hand, those with high differentiation may view a partner's pornography use as the partner's issue. On the other hand, those with low differentiation may view their partner's pornography use as something they are responsible for or need to change. Using data from 1,665 couples across the United States from Wave 6 of the CREATE study, actor-partner interdependence models were estimated to examine how husband and wife pornography use was associated with reports from each about their relationship attachment and sexual satisfaction, moderated by differentiation of self. Results suggest that pornography use was associated with lower attachment behaviors and sexual satisfaction for the person using it, but not for their partner. Using pornography with a partner more than on one's own was associated with higher sexual satisfaction than using it alone. Couples where neither partner used pornography had higher attachment behaviors and sexual satisfaction than those where either partner used any pornography. Differentiation of self consistently predicted higher attachment behaviors and sexual satisfaction, but only moderated the relationship between pornography use and marital outcomes in one instance. Results imply that pornography use relates to marital outcomes differently depending on whether a higher proportion of use is solitary or joint, and using no pornography was associated with better marital outcomes.
Degree
MS
College and Department
Family, Home, and Social Sciences; Family Life
Rights
https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Noorda, Naomi McAllister, "Is This My Thing, or Your Thing?: Differentiation of Self As A Moderator Between Pornography Use and Marital Outcomes" (2023). Theses and Dissertations. 10650.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/10650
Date Submitted
2023-12-14
Document Type
Thesis
Handle
http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd13487
Keywords
attachment behaviors, differentiation of self, pornography use, sexual satisfaction
Language
english