Does pornography affect delay discounting and executive functions?
Soini, Miika (2022)
Soini, Miika
2022
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2022042931651
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2022042931651
Tiivistelmä
The internet is widely available and enables rapid consumption of short pornographic clips with potentially endless novelty (Ashton et al., 2019). The instant and constant gratification that internet pornography offers may lead to habituation and reward seeking (Negash et al., 2015). Executive functions play a role in decision making and allow for delayed gratification (Bickel et al., 2007; Negash et al., 2015). Studies have found that sexual stimuli negatively affect decision making and delay discounting (Cheng & Chiou, 2018; Laier et al., 2013; Negash et al., 2015; O’Malley et al., 2010). Delay discounting is the preference of sooner smaller rewards over later larger rewards, and is an aspect of impulsivity (Negash et al., 2015). Negash et al. (2015) found that pornography causally affected delay discounting. The current study aimed to replicate the findings by Negash et al. (2015), and to further explore the effects of pornography consumption on three domains within executive functions: inhibition, updating, and shifting (Friedman et al., 2008; Miyake et al., 2000). Two hypotheses were formulated: 1) participants in the experiment group will demonstrate less delay discounting than the participants in the control group; 2) the experiment group will outperform the control group in all tasks except for the number letter task, which measures shifting abilities.
Method: Participants were recruited online. The inclusion criteria were the age of 18–35 and the consumption of pornography through the internet more often than once a month. Participation was anonymous, and the incentive to participate was the chance to win prizes in raffle ticket drawings at the end of the study. Participants were randomized into the treatment groups. The experiment group had to abstain from all pornography for the duration of three weeks, while the control group had to abstain from their favorite food or treat. At pre- and post-intervention measurements the participants reported frequency of pornography consumption, favorite food consumption, and sexual activity, and completed three executive tests. Finally, at the post-intervention measurements, participants completed the delay discounting task, which the raffle ticket drawings were part of. For each measured variable and measurement time, between-group differences and within-group differences were measured.
Results: None of the statistical analyses were significant.
Discussion: No conclusions can be drawn from the results. The procedure check failed for both treatment groups. Both pre-formulated hypotheses were rejected. The delay discounting task has ecological validity, but the test paradigm might have low predictive validity (see Benjamin et al., 2020) and requires further research. There were some limitations in the study and the clearest limitation was the small sample size (N = 7). A replication of the current study, but with a bigger sample, could yield significant results. Future research should explore the mediating and moderating variables between pornography consumption and the studied dependent variables. Future research could be of clinical importance, for example, to aid defining and noticing risky pornography consumption (Negash et al., 2015).
Method: Participants were recruited online. The inclusion criteria were the age of 18–35 and the consumption of pornography through the internet more often than once a month. Participation was anonymous, and the incentive to participate was the chance to win prizes in raffle ticket drawings at the end of the study. Participants were randomized into the treatment groups. The experiment group had to abstain from all pornography for the duration of three weeks, while the control group had to abstain from their favorite food or treat. At pre- and post-intervention measurements the participants reported frequency of pornography consumption, favorite food consumption, and sexual activity, and completed three executive tests. Finally, at the post-intervention measurements, participants completed the delay discounting task, which the raffle ticket drawings were part of. For each measured variable and measurement time, between-group differences and within-group differences were measured.
Results: None of the statistical analyses were significant.
Discussion: No conclusions can be drawn from the results. The procedure check failed for both treatment groups. Both pre-formulated hypotheses were rejected. The delay discounting task has ecological validity, but the test paradigm might have low predictive validity (see Benjamin et al., 2020) and requires further research. There were some limitations in the study and the clearest limitation was the small sample size (N = 7). A replication of the current study, but with a bigger sample, could yield significant results. Future research should explore the mediating and moderating variables between pornography consumption and the studied dependent variables. Future research could be of clinical importance, for example, to aid defining and noticing risky pornography consumption (Negash et al., 2015).
Kokoelmat
- 515 Psykologia [233]