Addiction, https://doi.org/10.1111/add.15272.
Comments: This new study found that behavioral addicts (not just porn addicts) often disapprove of the behaviors they are struggling to eliminate. This finding shatters one of the most pernicious myths that pro-porn researchers have promoted in the last decade, namely that moral disapproval and shame predict porn problems. See New study shatters the “moral incongruence” myth.
The fact is, levels of porn use predict porn problems, as with any addiction. Porn addiction is as genuine as the addictions of gaming and gambling, both of which are already codified in widely used diagnostic manuals. Indeed, see this paper by 15 world experts, opining that porn addiction can also be diagnosed as an addiction under the new ICD-11 section “Disorders due to addictive behaviours,” and not just under the “Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder” diagnosis.
Abstract
Background and Aims
Moral incongruence involves disapproval of a behaviour in which people engage despite their moral beliefs. Although considerable research has been conducted on how moral incongruence relates to pornography use, potential roles for moral incongruence in other putative behavioural addictions have not been investigated. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of moral incongruence in self‐perceived addiction to: (1) pornography, (2) internet addiction, (3) social networking, and (4) online gaming.
Design
A cross‐sectional, preregistered, online survey using multivariable regression.
Setting
Online study conducted in Poland.
Participants
1036 Polish adults aged between 18 and 69 years.
Measurements
Measures included self‐perceived behavioural addiction to pornography, internet use, social networking and online gaming) and their hypothesized determinants (moral incongruence, frequency of use, time of use, religiosity, age, gender).
Findings
Higher moral incongruence (β=0.20, p<.001) and higher religiosity (β=0.08, p<.05) were independently associated with higher self‐perceived addiction to pornography. Additionally, frequency of pornography use was the strongest of the analyzed predictors (β=0.43, p<.001). A similar, positive relationship between high moral incongruence and self‐perceived addiction was also present for internet (β=0.16, p<.001), social networking (β=0.18, p<.001) and gaming addictions (β=0.16, p<.001). Religiosity was uniquely, although weakly, connected to pornography addiction, but not to other types of addictive behaviours.
Conclusions
Moral incongruence may be positively associated with self‐perception of behavioural addictions including not only pornography viewing, but also internet use, social networking and online gaming.
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