Abstract

Previous studies suggest that religious individuals are more likely than non-religious individuals to perceive their pornography use as problematic. For our six-month longitudinal study, we recruited a sample of adults from Turkprime.com. We hypothesized that more religious individuals who use pornography at baseline would report higher self-perceived problematic pornography use at three months, which would be associated with higher depression at six months. We constructed and validated our own measure of self-perceived problematic pornography use, which included two factors: excessive pornography use and compulsive pornography use. We ran two separate structural equation models, one with excessive use at three months and the other with compulsive use at three months. Contrary to our hypothesis, religiosity was not related to self-perceived problematic pornography use in any of the models. Both models were moderated by biological sex. For men, religiosity at baseline was associated with increased pornography use at six months. For both men and women, excessive pornography use at three months was associated with increased depression at six months. For men, depression at baseline was associated with self-perceived problematic pornography use at three months. For women, higher self-perceived problematic pornography use at three months predicted lower frequency of pornography use and higher depression at six months. Women’s pornography use was more stable over time than men’s. Our findings are discussed in light of theories of depression, religious incongruence, and sexual scripts.

Degree

MS

College and Department

Family, Home, and Social Sciences; Psychology

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2019-06-01

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd11104

Keywords

problematic pornography use, pornography use, religiosity, excessive use, compulsive use, depression, pornography

Language

english

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