Dirty Habits? Online Pornography Use, Personality, Obsessionality, and Compulsivity

Abstract

Internet pornography use can be compulsive, but evaluation of pathology underlying this is difficult to assess. The present study aimed to distinguish individual differences in personality and psychopathology that predict pornography consumption in an individual, and whether this reflected more general compulsive processes, assessing 226 male participants. Neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and obsessional checking all significantly correlated with a latent measure of compulsive behavior upon which use of Internet pornography use also loaded. The authors suggest the greater use of pornography on the Internet may reflect a general vulnerability to compulsive problems related to basic disposition, and that problems associated with this behavior can be managed with generic clinical approaches to obsessional and compulsive disorders.