Arch Sex Behav DOI 10.1007/s10508-016-0896-y
ORIGINAL PAPER
Spousal Religiosity, Religious Bonding, and Pornography Consumption Samuel L. Perry1
Received: 7 December 2015 / Revised: 30 April 2016 / Accepted: 27 October 2016 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract Religiosity and pornography use are often closely connected. Relatively few studies, however, have examined how this religion–pornography connection plays out within the context of committed romantic relationships. Moreover, virtually all studies of religion and pornography use conceptualize religiosity as a quality intrinsic to the person that typically reduces pornography viewing. Focusing on married Americans, this study shifted the focus to consider whether the religiosity of one’s spouse relates to one’s own pornography viewing and under what circumstances. Analyses of the nationally representative Portraits of American Life Study (N = 1026) revealed that spousal religiosity was strongly and negatively related to participants viewing pornography, controlling for participants’ own religious or sociodemographic characteristics or sexual satisfaction. This relationship held whether spousal religiosity was measured with participants’ evaluations of their spouses’ religiosity or spouses’ self-reported religiosity. The association between spousal religiosity and pornography use was also moderated by participants’ religious service attendance, gender, and age. Considering mechanisms, the association between spousal religiosity and pornography use was mediated by frequent participation in religious bonding activities as a couple, suggesting thatspousalreligiositymaydecreasepornographyviewingamong married Americans by promoting greater religious intimacy and unity between the couple, consequently decreasing one’s interest or opportunities to view pornography.
All data for replication are available from The ARDA. Coding specifications are available from the author upon request. & Samuel L. Perry
[email protected] 1
Department of Sociology, University of Oklahoma, 780 Van Vleet Oval, Kaufman Hall 335A, Norman, OK 73019, USA
Keywords Pornography Marriage Religion Religiosity Sexual satisfaction
Introduction Owing in large part to the rise of the Internet, viewing pornography has become fairly commonplace in the USA, with various sources indicating that up to one-third of Americans access sexually explicit materials at least once a month (and typically more often) (Carroll et al., 2008; Edelman, 2009; Short, Black, Smith, Wetterneck, & Wells, 2012).1 Though debates about the social consequences of such widespread pornography consumption are still ongoing, research has consistently found that more frequent pornography use may either present, or be indicative of, relational problems for heterosexual married Americans. Specifically, studies have generally shown that viewing pornography is associated with lower marital quality by a variety of different measures (Manning, 2006; Perry, 2016a, b; Stack, Wasserman, & Kern, 2004), higher chance of infidelity and overall marital instability (Doran & Price, 2014), as well as various genderspecific issues like lower sexual satisfaction (in males) and selfimage or intimacy problems (in females) (Bridges, Bergner, & Hesson-McInnis, 2003; Daneback, Traeen, & Mansson, 2009; Poulsen, Busby, & Galovan, 2013; Yucel & Gassanov, 2010). While some research has suggested that it is pornography use that more often negatively affects couples’ outcomes (Bergner & Bridges, 2002; Lambert, Negash, Stillman, Olmstead, & Fincham, 2012; Zillmann & Bryant, 1988), other studies have
1
The term‘‘pornography’’is both notoriously difficult to define and can carry moral connotations (Carroll et al., 2008; Lindgren, 1993; Manning, 2006; Short et al., 2012). For the purposes of this study, pornography will be understood as visual material (magazines, movies, Internet images) intended to sexually arouse the viewer.
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found bidirectional associations, showing that relationship problems can also predict greater pornography consumption (Willoughby, Carroll, Busby, & Brown, 2016). Inconsideringthesocialcorrelatesofpornographyuseamong Americans, a large number of studies have shown that persons who are more religious are less likely to access or use pornography, for a variety of reasons (Baltazar, Helm, McBride, Hopkins, & Stevens, 2010; Bridges & Morokoff, 2011; Doran & Price, 2014; Grubbs, Exline, Pargament, Hook, & Carlisle, 2015; Nelson, Padilla-Walker, & Carroll, 2010; Patterson & Price, 2012; Poulsen et al., 2013; Short, Kasper, & Wetterneck, 2015; Stack et al., 2004; Wright, 2013a; Wright, Bae, & Funk, 2013). This research, however,has focused largely on adolescents, college students, and/or unmarried couples. Consequently, despite the relational problems often associated with pornography consumption in marriage, the links between religious factors and pornography use among married American adults remain understudied. While research has demonstrated a negative relationship between personal religiosity and pornography use, this study sought to shift the focus to examine the extent to which the religiosity of one’s spouse (holding constant the participant’s own religious characteristics) may be linked with lower reported pornography use among married Americans. It also developed and tested theories about the important mechanisms at work in thisrelationshipbyexaminingmoderatingandmediatingeffects. Specifically, it examined the extent to which the observed link between spousal religiosity and participants’ pornography consumption is moderated by participants’ own religious life and sociodemographic factors. Testing for mediating effects, it examined whether spousal religiosity may diminish pornography consumption among married Americans in large part by promoting religious intimacy and unity among the married couple that may decrease a participant’s interest or opportunities to view pornography.
Background Religion and Pornography Consumption Within the research connecting religion and pornography consumption, data have most often been drawn from non-random samples of college students (e.g., Abell, Steenbergh, & Boivin, 2006; Baltazar et al., 2010; Goodson, McCormick, & Evans, 2001; Nelson et al., 2010; Short et al., 2015) or samples focusing on adolescents (Collins et al., 2004; Grubbs et al., 2015; Hardy, Steelman, Coyne, & Ridge, 2013; Regnerus, 2007; Regnerus & Uecker, 2011). Among the few quantitative studies of pornography use among married Americans, religious factors have more often been controlled away rather than studied (for an exception, see Doran & Price, 2014). Consequently, little explicit attention has been given to the relationship between religiosity and pornography viewing among married Americans.
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One of the most consistent findings in research on pornography consumption has been that‘‘religious commitment’’or ‘‘religiosity’’(by a variety of different measures) is negatively associated with consuming pornography (Baltazar et al., 2010; Bridges & Morokoff, 2011; Doran & Price, 2014; Grubbs et al., 2015; Nelson et al., 2010; Patterson & Price, 2012; Perry, 2015a, 2016a; Poulsen et al., 2013; Short et al., 2015; Stack et al., 2004; Wright, 2013a, b; Wright et al., 2013).2 Drawing on General Social Survey (GSS) data, several studies (Doran & Price, 2014; Patterson & Price, 2012; Stack et al., 2004; Wright, 2013b; Wright & Arroyo, 2013) have found that church attendance (rather than religious identity or belief) predicts a lower likelihood of viewing pornography. These scholars have proposed that religious bonds (and the accompanying social control) over and above religious identity or personal beliefs are akeymechanismdiscouragingpornography use,puttingahigher social cost on pornography (Doran & Price, 2014). Other studies have found both social control and internal dimensions of religious life to correlate with pornography viewing. In their study of adolescents, Hardy et al. (2013) found that both religious internalization and involvement appeared to protect against pornography use through increased self-regulation and social control. Both Baltazar et al. (2010) and Short et al. (2015) reported a significant inverse correlation between both‘‘intrinsic’’and‘‘extrinsic’’religiosity and regular viewing of Internet pornography among college students. Those high on‘‘intrinsic’’religiosity were thought to have internalized the beliefs and values of their religious creed (love, forgiveness, personal piety, and morality) while those high on‘‘extrinsic’’religiosity pursue religion for more instrumental reasons including friends, social approval, and positive self-image (Baltazar et al., 2010). Also focusing on college students, Nelson et al. (2010) reported that those who did not use pornography were themselves more faithful in religious practice (internal religiosity) and were raised in faithfully practicing families (social control and socialization). And in studies looking at heterosexual couples, it has been found that intrinsic and extrinsic measures of religious commitment were negatively associated with pornography use for both men and women (Bridges & Morokoff, 2011; Poulsen et al., 2013). Taken together, these findings suggest that religion may reduce pornography use to the extent that (1) religious moral values are actually internalized by adherents, guiding their private behavior, and (2) religious adherents are embedded within networks of accountability (social control) and social support among other religious adherents who probe their private lives 2
Among other important factors linked with pornography use, research shows that pornography is more often consumed by adults who are male, younger, unmarried, sexually active and permissive, higher socioeconomic status (education and income), with more computer access and competency, and nonwhite (Doring, 2009; Patterson & Price, 2012; Peter & Valkenburg, 2010;Poulsenetal.,2013;Price,Patterson,Regnerus,&Walley,2015;Stack et al., 2004; Wright, 2013a, b; Wright et al., 2013).
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and discourage sexual‘‘deviance.’’While the role of religious bonding has been theorized among scholars (Doran & Price, 2014; Stack et al., 2004), studies have not considered the role of a devout spouse in discouraging the use of pornography, and the potential mechanisms at work in this relationship. Pornography Consumption and Couple Outcomes With some important caveats,3 research has generally found that pornography use is negatively associated with various measures of relationship quality and stability, both for those in unmarried romantic relationships and in married couples (for reviews, see Doring, 2009; Manning, 2006; Short et al., 2012). Experimental studies have found that exposure to pornography among college students is linked to lower relationship commitment (Lambert et al., 2012), as well as lower satisfaction with their romantic partner’s affection, physical appearance, sexual curiosity, and sexual performance (Zillmann & Bryant, 1988). Longitudinal studies have also found that pornography use predicts declines in marital quality (Perry, 2016b) and greater opennessto an extramarital affair (Wright, Tokunaga, & Bae, 2014). Qualitative studies of women in heterosexual relationships have shown that a partner’s pornography use is negatively associated with women’s self-esteem, sexual satisfaction, and perceptions of relationship quality (Bergner & Bridges, 2002; Stewart & Szymanski, 2012; Zitzman & Butler, 2009). Drawing on GSS data, Stack et al. (2004) found that one of the leading correlates of Internet pornography consumption is an unhappy marriage. Also using GSS data, Doran and Price (2014) reported that ever-married adults who viewed Internet pornography in the last 30 days or an X-rated movie in the past year were more likely to be divorced, and more likely to have an extramarital affair. And those who had viewed an X-rated movie were less happy with their marriage. While the general trend is that pornography use is negatively associated with marital quality and stability, the link between pornography use and marriage outcomes is often gendered. While most studies have found that men’s pornography consumption is negatively associated with various aspects of relationship quality, some have shown that this negative association does not hold for women. And, in fact, pornography use can be positively associated with couples’ outcomes (Bridges & Morokoff, 2011; Daneback et al., 2009; Perry, 2016c; Poulsen et al., 2013). Perry (2016b) attributed this finding to different use patterns among men and women, with women often using 3
Some family care practitioners claim that watching sexually explicit materials together, for the purposes of fantasy stimulation and mutual sexual gratification, may be salutary for the marriage (Bridges & Morokoff, 2011; Maddox, Rhoades, & Markman, 2011; Manning, 2006; Willoughby et al., 2016). This purpose for pornography, however, appears to be less often the casethanonespouseconsumingpornographyalone,whichdoesnotpromote greater marital bonding or satisfaction (Maddox et al., 2011; Manning, 2006; Bridges & Morokoff, 2011).
pornography as a part of sex with their partners. Men, in contrast, are more likely to use sexual media alone to masturbate (Maddox et al., 2011). It is important to note that majority of the above studies have been correlational and/or based on cross-sectional data. This makes directionality difficult to determine. Some qualitative data and experimental data seemed to suggest that pornography use more often leads to negative relationship outcomes (e.g., Bergner & Bridges, 2002; Lambert et al., 2012; Zillmann & Bryant, 1988), while others suggested that relational unhappiness or sexual dissatisfactionlead to the greater use of pornography (Doran & Price, 2014; Stack et al., 2004; Willoughby et al., 2016). Spousal Religiosity and Marriage Outcomes Within the extensive and growing literature on religion and marriage (for a review, see Mahoney, 2010), one of the most consistent findings has been that religiously homogamous marriages tend to exhibit higher levels of quality and stability.4 Marriages that are homogamous in terms of broad religious tradition or denominational affiliation (Heaton, 2002; Wilson & Musick, 1996), religious beliefs (Curtis & Ellison, 2002; Ellison, Burdette, & Wilcox, 2010; Lichter & Carmalt, 2009; Vaaler et al., 2009), or practices (Call & Heaton, 1997; Myers, 2006) are more satisfying for both partners and less likely to end in separation or divorce. Conversely, marriages with greater religious heterogamy report lower marital quality and stability (Call & Heaton, 1997; Curtis & Ellison, 2002; Lichter & Carmalt, 2009; Perry, 2015b; Waite & Lehrer, 2003). The upshot of this research is that religion strengthens marriage, particularly when the couple is bonded by common religious devotion and identity. Other studies, however, affirm a positive link between the religiosity of individual partners and marital stability and quality, suggesting that it is not only cultural homogamy that benefits marriage, but rather religious commitment itself may promote positive relationship outcomes (Brown, Orbuch, & Bauermeister, 2008; Burdette, Ellison, Sherkat, & Gore, 2007; Call & Heaton, 1997; Ellison et al., 2010; Ellison, Henderson, Glenn, & Harkrider, 2011; Lichter & Carmalt, 2009; Perry, 2015b). Indeed, recent research has affirmed that married Americans with more-devout spouses report greater marital satisfaction, receive more frequent acts of devotion with fewer insults or harsh criticisms, and are less suspicious of cheating (Perry, 2015b, c, 2016c). There are several reasons to expect these findings. Religions generally teach the sanctity of marriage itself (Ellison et al., 2011) and to internalize character 4
Research has also shown homogamy regarding other socially significant characteristics such as race/ethnicity, age, or education contributes to marital quality and stability. This is often for same reason religious homogamy is linked with relationship quality, namely cultural sameness (Kalmijn, 1998).
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qualities that may be beneficial to marriage partners (love, forgiveness, patience, etc.) (Call & Heaton, 1997; Lambert & Dollahite, 2006; Marks, 2005; Mahoney, 2010). Devout believers also tend to be embedded within a community of coreligionists, which can be a source of support and social control for married couples, discouraging potentially negative marital behaviors (e.g., excessive pornography viewing) and divorce (Brown et al., 2008; Waite & Lehrer, 2003). Related to the issue of pornography consumption, having a more-devout spouse could discourage the use of pornography by promoting both religious piety and accountability or social control. Summary and Hypotheses Scholars testing for an association between religiosity and pornography use have argued that more frequent church attendance (as an indicator of embeddedness within a faith community) reduces pornography viewing by providing greater religious accountability and encouragement toward personal piety (a case of social control) (Doran & Price, 2014; Patterson & Price, 2012; Stack et al., 2004). Certainly, being married to a religiously devout spouse provides a similar—if not more powerful—type of accountability and encouragement toward personal piety in a way that would discourage the use of pornography. Firstly then, it is expected: Hypothesis 1 Spousal religiosity will be negatively associated with participants’ viewing pornography, controlling for other factors. Yet, the literature on religiosity and marriage outcomes suggests that greater marital quality is experienced when partners are religiously homogamous and, particularly, when they are both religiously devout (Call & Heaton, 1997; Myers, 2006; Perry, 2015b). Thus, it is likely that spousal religiosity will evidence a stronger inverse relationship with participants’ pornography consumption when participants themselves are also highly religious. Figure 1 illustrates this theorized moderating effect. Stated formally, it is predicted that: Hypothesis 2 The negative relationshipbetween spousal religiosity and participants’ pornography viewing will be strongest when participants themselves are more religious.
Fig. 1 Hypothesized main, moderating, and mediating relationships linking spousal religiosity and pornography viewing
But what are the key mechanisms at work in the theorized association between spousal religiosity and participants’ pornography viewing? That is, how exactly might having a religiously devout spouse be associated with one’s reduced tendency to view pornography? The research presented above, and tested indirectly in Hypothesis 2, suggests that participants’ are less likely to view pornography when they and their spouse are more religious together. That is to say, religious intimacy and unity are likely to discourage the use of pornography by married participants, and this religious intimacy is a consequence of both having a religiously devout spouse and being religiously devout oneself. Thus, it is proposed that the theorized association between spousal religiosity and pornography viewing is actually mediated by religious bonding between partners. From the theory presented here, three more hypotheses are derived to be tested in the analyses. Figure 1 incorporates Hypotheses 1, 3–5 in order to illustrate the theorized mediation relationship. Hypothesis 3 Spousal religiosity will be positively associated with participants’ more frequently engaging in religious bonding activities with their spouse, net of other factors. Hypothesis 4 Religious bonding activities will be negatively associated with participants’ viewing pornography, net of other factors. Hypothesis 5 Accounting for religious bonding in multivariate models will reduce the effect of spousal religiosity on participants’ pornography viewing to statistical insignificance (complete mediation).
Method Participants Hypotheses were tested using data from Wave 1 of the Portraits of American Life Study (PALS), which was fielded in 2006. PALS is a nationally representative panel survey with questions focusing on a variety of topics, including social networks, moral and political attitudes, and religious life. The PALS sampling frame includes the civilian, non-institutionalized household population in the continental USA who were 18 years of age or older at the time the survey was conducted.
Hypothesis 2 (moderation) Respondent’s Religiosity
Hypothesis 1 (main effect) Hypothesis 5 (mediation) Spousal Religiosity
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Hypothesis 3
Religious Bonding
Hypothesis 4
Lower Probability of Porn Viewing
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Surveys were administered in English or Spanish. From April to October 2006, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 2610 participants in their homes. Interviewers used audio computer-assisted self-interviewing for more sensitive questions (e.g., how often they view pornography). The response rate was 58%. For a more detailed discussion of sampling and data collection for PALS, see Emerson, Sikkink, and James (2010). Because this study focused on pornography consumption among married Americans, only participants who were married at the time of the study were included in analytical sample. The full models ultimately used data from married participants who providedvalidresponsestosociodemographic,religious,andpornography use measures. Measures The criterion of interest for this study was married participants’ viewing of pornography. PALS asked participants,‘‘In the past 12 months, how often have you viewed pornographic materials?’’Responses ranged from 1 = once a day or more to 8 = never. Certainly, social desirability could prevent honest answers given that pornography consumption in larger amounts is still viewed as morally objectionable, particularly for religious persons. Emerson et al. (2010) explained that for questions like this, each participant wore earphones to hear the questions prerecorded, and then entered their responses directly into the computer apart from the knowledge or help of the interviewer. This procedure would help mitigate social desirability bias for this question. Because such small percentages of participants reported viewing pornography at the highest frequency levels, and only 34% of participants reported viewing pornography at all in the previous 12 months—broadly consistent with numbers reported in the General Social Surveys and elsewhere (Edelman, 2009; Patterson& Price, 2012)—it was moreappropriate to collapse the measure to a dichotomous variable with 1 = viewed pornography in the previous 12 months, 0 = did not view pornography. This also makes the data directly comparable to previous studies using the General Social Survey’s measure of having viewed an X-rated movie in the past year (Doran & Price, 2014; Patterson & Price, 2012). Binary logistic regression models were used to estimate participants’ likelihood of having viewed pornography. The key predictor variables for this study were spousal religiosity and religious bonding activities between married partners. PALS participants were asked, ‘‘Thinking about your spouse/partner, how important would you say religion or religious faith is to him or her personally?’’Responses ranged from 1 = not at all important to 5 = by far the most important part of his/her life. A possible limitation of this measure was that it relies on participants’ evaluations of how important religion is to their spouses rather than spouse’s own self-reported religious commitment or behaviors. The 2006 PALS also included
a spousal survey that contained a similar question requiring spouses themselves to indicate how important religion was to them. Unfortunately, overall spousal participation was poor and thus the inclusion of the spouse’s responses in multivariate models reduced the analytic sample by more than 50%. Thus, this measure was not used as a focal measure in the analysis in order to preserve sample size. However, including spouses’ self-reported religiosity provides a valuable and necessary crosscheck, and thus this self-reported measure was incorporated into later analyses in order to validate the findings with the focal predictor variable described above. Religious bonding was a composite measure tapping how often participants engaged in religious activities with their spouses. PALS asked,‘‘In the past year, how often would you say you and your spouse/partner pray together, not including before meals and at religious services?’’and‘‘In the past year, how often would you say that you and your spouse/partner talk or read about religion, God, orspirituality together?’’Responses for both questions ranged from 1 = never to 7 = more than once a day. Responses were summed into a religious bonding scale with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .80. Multivariate analyses also included a host of religious and sociodemographic controls following previous research on pornography consumption (Doran & Price, 2014; Doring, 2009; Patterson & Price, 2012; Perry, 2015a, 2016a; Poulsen et al., 2013; Stack et al., 2004). Religion controls included measures for participants’ religious tradition, theological conservatism, and religious practice. Religious tradition was measured with the RELTRAD classification scheme (Steensland et al., 2000). The categories include evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, Black Protestant, Other Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Other, and None or Unaffiliated. Evangelical Protestants were the reference category. Theological conservatism was measured with a PALS question asking participants about whether they believed their religious text to be‘‘fully inspired by God.’’ Responses included 1 = fully inspired by God, 2 = partly inspired by God, 3 = not inspired by God, and 4 = I have never heard of the religious text. This measure was dichotomized so that 1 = fully inspired by God, 0 = other. Participants with a 1 for this measure would be more likely to view the moral teachings of their sacred text as authoritative. Lastly, religious practice was measured with religious service attendance following previous research (Doran & Price, 2014; Patterson & Price, 2012; Stack et al., 2004). Responses ranged from 1 = never to 8 = three times a week or more. Sociodemographic controls included the following. Age was measured in years, from 19 to 80. Dichotomous dummy variables were constructed for gender (male = 1), education (Bachelors degree or higher = 1), and region (South = 1), and a series of dummy variables were used for race (White = reference). Household income was measured in categories from (1) less than $5000 to (19) $200,000 or more. Lastly, because married participants’ use of pornography is likely to
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Arch Sex Behav Table 1 Descriptive statistics and correlations Description
M or SD %
Pornography viewing
Viewed pornography in last year = 1
34%
Spousal religiosity
How important is religion to your spouse/partner? Not at all = 1, most = 5
3.1
1.2 -.14***
Religious bonding activities
5.6
3.1 -.19***
Evangelical protestant
Summed scale of frequency spouses pray together and talk/read about religion or god together (range = 2–14; alpha = .80) Evangelical = 1
24%
-.09**
Mainline protestant
Mainline protestant = 1
13%
-.03
Black protestant
Black protestant = 1
7%
-.03
Other protestant
Other protestant = 1
4%
.04
Catholic
Catholic = 1
31%
.02
Jewish
Jewish = 1
1%
.04
Other religion
Other religion = 1
7%
.00
None
None = 1
12%
.12***
Scripture inspired
Scripture inspired = 1
63%
Religious service attendance
1 = never, 8 = three or more times a week
3.9
Age
In years, from 19 to 80
45
Male
Male = 1
45%
White
White = 1
56%
.01
Black
Black = 1
13%
.03
Hispanic Asian
Hispanic = 1 Asian = 1
20% 10%
-.03 -.02
Native American
Native American = 1
1%
Bachelors or higher
Bachelors degree or higher = 1
33%
Household income
Less than $5000 = 1, $200,000 or more = 19
10.6
South
South = 1
35%
Satisfied with sex life with spouse/partner
Completely dissatisfied = 1, completely satisfied = 5
4
Corr. with DV
-.20*** 2.2 -.16*** 14
-.18*** .32***
.03 .01 4.3
.10** .02
1.2 -.10**
N = 1026 ** p\.01; *** p\.001 (two-tailed tests)
be associated with their sexual satisfaction in marriage (Poulsen et al., 2013), the analysis included a control for sexual satisfaction with values from 1 = completely dissatisfied to 5 = completely satisfied.For descriptive statistics of all variables used in the analyses, see Table 1.
Results Main Effects The bivariate correlations in Table 1 show that spousal religiosity was negatively correlated with having viewed pornography in the past year as was engaging in religious bonding activities with one’s spouse. While these correlations were not particularly large, they were both statistically significant at the .001 level. Other significant associations indicated that married adults who used pornography tended to be less religiously conservative (in terms of tradition or belief in full inspiration)
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or committed (in terms of attendance), younger, male, higher income, and less satisfied with one’s married sex life. Turning to the multivariate analyses, Table 2 presents odds ratios and fully standardized logistic regression coefficients predicting pornography viewing.5 With spousal religiosity and sociodemographic controls included in Model 1, married participants with more-religious spouses were less likely to view pornography in the past year (OR .70, p\.001, b = -.89). Spousal religiosity was the third strongest predictor behind being male and age. In order to control for participants’ own 5
Following Menard (2011), fully standardized logistic regression coefficients were calculated using the equation: b = (bxy)(sx)(R)/slogit(Y), where b is the fully standardized regression coefficient, bxy is the unstandardized regression coefficient, sx is the SD of the independent variable X, R is the zero-order correlation between the predicted value of Y (predicted probabilities for each case) and the observed value of Y (either 0 or 1), and slogit(Y) is the estimated SD of the dependent variable transformed with the logit link. The interpretation of fully standardized logistic regression coefficients is analogous to that of standardized beta coefficients in ordinary least squares regression.
Arch Sex Behav Table 2 Binary logistic regression predicting pornography viewing in the past year Predictors
Model 1
Spousal religiosity
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
OR
SE
b
OR
SE
b
OR
SE
b
OR
SE
b
.70***
.07
-.89
.78**
.08
-.63
.79**
.08
-.60
.64?
.27
-1.12
Spousal religiosity 9 scripture inspired
1.16
.17
.61
Spousal religiosity 9 attendance
.90**
.04
-2.47
Spousal religiosity 9 male
.77?
.15
-1.93
Spousal religiosity 9 age
1.02**
.01
2.30
.29 .43
-.03 -.16
Evangelical (reference) Mainline protestant Black protestant
1.11 .87
.28 .42
.08 -.08
1.07 .81
.29 .42
.05 -.11
.96 .75
Other protestant
1.94
.41
.27
1.91
.41
.26
1.80
.41
.45
Catholic
1.77*
.23
.56
1.69*
.23
.51
1.54?
.23
.42
Jewish
1.72
.64
.13
1.67
.64
.13
1.48
.66
.10
Other
1.14
.35
.07
1.13
.35
.07
1.09
.36
.05
None
1.34
.29
.14
1.32
.30
.19
1.26
.30
.16
.18
-.81
.18
-.80
.30*
.51
-1.23
.04
.15
.04
.19
1.48***
.12
1.86
Scripture inspired
.46***
Religious service attendance
1.03
.46*** 1.04
Age
.96***
.01
-1.19
.96***
.01
1.28
.96***
.01
-1.37
.91***
.02
-2.70
Male
5.58***
.16
1.80
5.77***
.16
1.85
5.80***
.16
1.86
12.88***
.47
2.69
1.16
.23
.04
1.41
.31
.24
1.46
.31
.27
1.50
.32
.28
Hispanic
.88
.20
-.08
.71
.23
-.30
.71
.23
-.29
.72
.23
-.28
Asian
.78
.26
-.16
.76
.29
-.18
.80
.29
-.15
.77
.30
-.17
Native American Bachelors or higher
1.75 .80
.75 .18
.10 -.22
1.79 .72?
.78 .19
.11 -.32
1.67 .71?
.78 .19
.10 -.34
1.60 .75
.77 .19
.09 -.29
Household income
1.07***
.02
.44
1.06**
.02
.51
1.06**
.02
.50
1.06**
.02
.54
South
1.13
.16
.12
1.27
.16
.24
1.22
.16
.20
1.20
.17
.19
.06
.53
.06
-.53
White (reference) Black
Satisfied with sex life 1.96?
Constant Nagelkerke pseudo R N
.81***
2
.38
1.94
.44
4.86**
.53
.81*** 9.48*
.25
.29
.30
.31
1040
1039
1026
1026
.93
OR = odds ratios with standard errors in parentheses, b = fully standardized logistic regression coefficients ?
p B .10; * p B .05; ** p B .01; *** p B .001 (two-tailed tests)
religiosity, Model 2 includes measures for religious tradition, theological conservatism, and religious service attendance. While the significance of spousal religiosity was diminished slightly (OR .78, p = .002), it was still strongly significant and negatively associated with pornography use, and was the fourth strongest predictor behind male, age, and believing in full scriptural inspiration. Model 3 added the measure of how satisfied participants were with their married sex lives, which caused the effect of spousal religiosity to change only slightly (OR .79, p = .004) and did not change the ordering of substantive significance. To summarize, even with religious, sociodemographic, and sexual satisfaction controls in place, participants with more-religious spouses were less likely to have viewed pornography in the past year. And this factor was one of the
strongest predictors of participants’ pornography use. The first hypothesis was thus supported.
Moderating Effects In order to test the second hypothesis that the negative association between spousal religiosity and participants’ pornography consumption would be stronger when participants’ them selves were more religious, Model 5 in Table 2 includes interaction terms for spousal religiosity and participants’ religious service attendance and believing their sacred text is fully inspired by God. The analysis also considered how the link between spousal religiosity and participants’ pornography con-
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sumption may be moderated by the participants’ sociodemographic factors most commonly associated with viewing pornography, specifically gender and age. These were also the strongest predictors of pornography use in the above models. The interaction term for spousal religiosity and believing their sacred text is fully inspired was nonsignificant, while the term for spousal religiosity 9 religious service attendance was significant at the .012 level and was the strongest interaction effect. The term for spousal religiosity 9 age was also significant at the .014 level, while the interaction term for spousal religiosity 9 male was marginally significant at .060. The moderating relationship between spousal religiosity and gender on pornography consumption was rather straightforward. The negative interaction effect indicated that spousal religiosity was more strongly associated with the pornography consumption of males, than females. In other words, assuming almost all legally married couples in the 2006 PALS are heterosexual (a safe assumption in 2006), the religiosity of wives was more strongly linked with the pornography use of their husbands than the religiosity of husbandswas related to the pornography viewing of their wives. The moderating relationship between spousal religiosity and age on viewing pornography requires more interpretation. Both spousal religiosity and age were negatively associated with pornography use in their main effects, but the interaction term was positive and significant. This typically occurs when the negative main effect of each variable on an outcome diminishes across higher values of the other variable in the interaction and vice versa. That is to say, among married Americans with relatively irreligious spouses, there was a steep drop in the likelihood of viewing pornography as the participants’ age increased. However, at the highest levels of spousal religiosity, the negative effect of age on pornography consumption decreased to the point where participants with the most religious spouses were virtually identical in their probability of viewing pornography across any age. Figure 2 illustrates the moderating relationship between spousal religiosity and religious service attendance on pornography viewing. Among participants who never attended religious services or did so infrequently, the religious commitment of their spouse mattered very little in predicting their pornography use. The probability that these married non-attendees viewed pornography in the previous year was relatively high and similar, right around 40–50%. As participants’ religious service attendance increased, however, their spouse’s religiosity started to matter more for predicting their pornography use. That is, as religious service attendance increased, participants with more religiously devout spouses were less and less likely to have viewed pornography. By contrast, participants with spouses who were less religious did not seem to decrease in their likelihood of viewing pornography, even as their own religious service attendance increased. This would suggest that it was a combination of personal and spousal religios-
123
ity that influenced participants’ pornography consumption. This supports the second hypothesis and set up the analysis of mediating effects.
Mediating Effects As discussed above, it was theorized that spousal religiosity would be associated with a reduction in married participants’ likelihood of viewing pornography through the mechanism of promoting greater religious intimacy and closeness between spouses such that pornography would become less attractive or available to the participant. This theory was indirectly supported somewhat by the moderating effect illustrated in Fig. 2, where it was seen that spousal religiosity was most strongly related to diminished likelihood of pornography consumption when the participant was also religiously active. Tables 3 and 4 provide a more direct test of this theory, examining how spousal religiosity andthe frequencywith which participants engage in religious bonding activities with their spouses both related to participants’ likelihood of viewing pornography. Table 3 presents unstandardized and standardized regression coefficients from ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models predicting participants’ frequency of religious bonding activities. Model 1 included only religious and sociodemographic controls. Model 2 introduces spousal religiosity. As predicted in Hypothesis 3, spousal religiosity was significant and the strongest predictor of religious bonding in the model (b = 1.04, p\.001, b = .41), followed by participants’ own religious service attendance (b = .43, p\.001, b = .31). Model 3 includes interaction terms for spousal religiosity 9 participants’ religious service attendance and belief that their sacred text is fully inspired. Both interaction terms were positive and significant, indicating that spousal religiosity, the strongest predictor of religious bonding activities, was most strongly predictive of religious bonding at the highest levels of participants’ownreligiosity.Putsimply,religiousbondingoccurs more often among married couples whom are both religiously devout, which is intuitive. But how does religious bonding influence the relationship between spousal religiosity and pornography consumption? Table 4 presents binary logistic regression models testing for the mediatingeffect hypothesized above (Hypothesis 5).Model 1 reproduces Model 3 from Table 2, where spousal religiosity was significant and negatively related to participants viewing pornography in the previous year (OR .79, p = .004, b = -.60). When religious bonding was included in Model 2, spousal religiosity was reduced to nonsignificance (OR .89, ns, b = -.31), while religious bonding was highly significant and negatively related to pornography consumption (OR .88, p\ .001; b = -.81) and was third strongest predictor of pornography use, behind male (b = 1.89) and age (b = -1.39). These
Fig. 2 Predicted probabilities of viewing pornography on religious service attendance and spousal religiosity
Probability of Viewing Porn in Past Year
Arch Sex Behav 0.6
Importance of religion to your partner/spouse
0.5 0.4
Not at all Somewhat
0.3
Very 0.2
Extremely Most
0.1 0 Lowest
Highest
Respondent's Religious Service Attendance
Table 3 Ordinary least squares regression predicting religious bonding between spouses Predictors
Model 1 b
Model 2 SE
b
Spousal religiosity
Model 3
b
SE
b
1.04***
.07
.41
b
SE
b
.39**
.14
.15
Spousal religiosity 9 scripture inspired
.38*
.15
.24
Spousal religiosity 9 attendance
.10***
.03
.35
Evangelical (reference) Mainline protestant
-1.17***
.28
-.12
-.73**
.26
-.08
-.62*
.26
-.07
Black protestant
-1.14**
.44
-.09
-.73?
.41
-.06
-.70?
.40
-.06
Other protestant Catholic
-.21 -1.14***
.45 .23
-.01 -.17
-.09 -.92***
.41 .21
-.01 -.14
-.05 -.76***
.40 .21
-.00 -.11
Jewish
-.76
.71
-.03
-.04
.65
-.00
.08
.64
.00
Other
-.69
?
.36
-.06
-.28
.34
-.02
-.15
.33
-.01
None
-.54?
.31
-.06
-.05
.29
-.01
-.19
.28
-.02 -.10
Scripture inspired
.83***
.19
.13
.45**
.17
.07
-.62
.47
Religious service attendance
.67***
.04
.48
.43***
.04
.31
.09
.11
.06
.00
-.01
-.00
.01
-.02
-.00
.00
-.01
.55***
.16
.09
.14
.15
.02
.14
.15
.02
Black
.59?
.34
.06
.08
.31
.01
.20
.31
.02
Hispanic
.75**
.24
.10
.53*
.22
.07
.57**
.22
.07
Asian
.20
.30
.02
.06
.28
.01
.11
.27
.01
1.37
.85
.04
1.02
.82
.03
1.07
.81
.03
Age Male
-.00
White (reference)
Native American Bachelors or higher
.30
.19
.06
Household income South
-.05* .21
.02 .17
-.07 .03
Intercept
3.11***
.45
.26
.18
.04
-.05** .28?
.02 .15
-.08 .04
1.16**
.43
.19
.18
.03
-.06** .25
.02 .15
-.08 .04
2.92***
.54
Adjusted R2
.35
.46
.47
N
1051
1042
1042
b = unstandardized coefficients, b = standardized coefficients ?
p B .10; * p B .05; ** p B .01; *** p B .001 (two-tailed tests)
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Arch Sex Behav Table 4 Binary logistic regression predicting pornography viewing in past year Model 1a
Predictors
Spousal religiosity
Model 2
OR
SE
b
.79**
.08
-.60
Religious bonding
OR .89
.09
-.31
.04
-.81b
H
H
Sociodemographic controls
H
H
H
H
.30
.31
1026
1026
Nagelkerke pseudo R
2
N
b
.88***
Religion controls
Satisfied with sex life
SE
OR = odds ratios with standard errors in parentheses, b = fully standardized logistic regression coefficients ** p B .01; *** p B .001 (two-tailed tests) a
Model 1 reproduces Model 3 from Table 2. All controls were included. Model 2 is only different in that it adds religious bonding activities between spouses b Religious bonding was the third strongest predictor in the model behind only male and age. Full results available upon request
effects affirmed the remaining hypotheses (Hypotheses 4 and 5).6 The pseudo R2 also increased from .29 to .31 suggesting more variance explained with religious bonding included. In order to cross-check the findings reported in Tables 2, 3 and 4, which rely on participants’own reporting of theirspouse’s religious commitment, all analyses were rerun while controlling for spouse’s self-reported religious commitment. The main, moderating, and mediating effects using the self-reported measures, presented in Appendix Tables 5 and 6, were virtually identical to those using participants’ evaluations of their spouse, despite the fact that the N reduced to less than 500 in each model.7 This provides evidence that the effects observed in Tables 2, 3, and 4 were not due to participants’ biased evaluations of their spouses’ religiosity.
Discussion This study examined how the pornography consumption of married Americans was potentially related to the religious commitment of their spouses. Having a spouse who is religiously devout was associated with a lower likelihood of a participant’s viewing pornography in the previous year, even after controlling for participants’ own religious identity, beliefs, and commitment; sociodemographic background; and sexual 6
The mediation analysis follows the Baron and Kenny ‘‘causal steps’’ approach to mediation. While this approach has been criticized by Hayes (2009), Hayes’ criticism involves situations in which mediation actually exists but is not detected because of too little statistical power, which is not the case in this study. 7 The only significant difference was that the interactions observed in Table 2, Model 4, while in the predicted direction, were no longer significant except for spousal religiosity 9 age. This is likely because of the reduced sample size. The full model without interactions presented in Table 2, Model 3, was replicated in Appendix Table 6.
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satisfaction. However, interaction effects revealed that spousal religiosity had a particularly strong, negative relationship to participants’ pornography viewing when participants themselves were also quite religious, as evidenced by more frequent religious service attendance. In an effort to understand the mechanisms at work, the analysis tested for whether spousal religiosity was linked to participants’ pornography consumption by promoting religious intimacy and unity between spouses, evidenced by more frequent religious bonding activities. The analyses affirmed this theory, showing that religious bonding activities (themselves strongly predicted by a combination of spousal and participants’ religiosity) completely mediated the association between spousal religiosity and participant’s pornography viewing. Before further discussing the implications of this study, several limitations should be acknowledged. First, the data were cross-sectional and thus causal direction could not be demonstrated definitively. However, the hypothesized relationship (spousal religiosity influencing participants’ pornography consumption) is arguably far more likely than the alternative (participants’ pornography consumption influencing the religiosity of one’s spouse), and virtually all previous studies on religiosity and pornography viewing assume the explanatory model proposed here. Nevertheless, longitudinal and qualitative data would be ideal to verify causal direction and it is unfortunate that PALS did not ask about pornography use in Wave 2. A second possible limitation is that, as mentioned earlier, the bivariate correlations between participants’ pornography consumption and either spousal religiosity or religious bonding were not particularly large (r below -.20 for both). While this might cause concern about the relevance of the findings, it should be kept in mind that these associations were robust to controls and ended up being among the strongest effects in multivariate models. A third limitation is that PALS only
Arch Sex Behav
asked participants to give a general idea of how important religion was to their partner or spouse rather than specific indicators of how religious they are in their day-to-day lives (e.g., how often they attend services, their theological beliefs). While the study was able to demonstrate that the associations observed for spousal religiosity were virtually identical whether models included participants’ evaluations of their spouse’s religiosity orspouse’s self-reported religiosity, knowing moredetails about a spouse’s religious life would help to clarify mechanisms influencing participants’ pornography consumption. Future research on this topic would thus benefit from more explicit measures of spousal religiosity, and this would certainly be the case with dyadic data. These limitations notwithstanding, the findings hold several implications for research on religion, pornography, and marriage. First, this research extends literature on religion and pornography use among Americans. The finding that spousal religiosity was associated with lower likelihood of pornography use for married Americans, particularly when both spouse and participant were highly religious, and through the mechanisms of religious intimacy and unity between partners, suggests that there are both intrinsic and extrinsic forces at work. Having a religiously devout spouse provides a source of social control—an extrinsic source of accountability and encouragement for married persons, and particularly for married men— to avoid viewing pornography. By fostering religious unity and intimacy within the couple, religious spouses help to shape the behavior and inclinations of their partners. But this religious intimacy and unity is also a consequence of participants’ own religious piety and, thus, it would seem that the intrinsic and extrinsic elements linking spousal religiosity to reduced pornography consumption among married Americans are mutually reinforcing. Moreover, the findings of this study contribute to research on pornography and marriage quality. In multivariate models, sexual satisfaction was strongly and negatively associated with viewing pornography, suggesting that pornography is to some degree a cause and/or consequence of sex life in marriage. Yet, religious factors influenced pornography use even after controlling for participants’ sexual satisfaction, and were also substantively stronger predictors. This suggests that pornography use among married persons should not necessarily be understood primarily as an outlet due to sexual frustration, but is more
strongly shaped by participants’ spousal influence, personal beliefs/practices, and relational behaviors. Future research, however, should examine the interplay between religion, sexuality, and marriage in order to better understand the ways religion influences the sex practices and satisfaction of married couples beyond simply discouraging pornography use. Lastly, this research extends the large body of literature on religion and married life. Because pornography has been linked with poorer marital quality and stability among Americans (e.g., Doran & Price, 2014; Perry, 2016a; Stack et al., 2004), the observed efficacy of spousal religiosity, and the religious bonding that may follow, in reducing participants’ pornography use illustrates another way in which religion and marriage are linked: Both individual and mutual religious commitment and bonding may contribute to stronger unions by reducing excessive pornography consumption and the unfortunate relational and psychological consequences that may be associated with it. Future longitudinal research should examine the extent to which the effects of spousal religiosity and religious bonding persist in reducing pornography consumption among married persons. It could be that the effects of spousal religiosity wear off as married Americans learn to hide and sublimate their pornography use. Future research would also do well to examine how religion relates to the possible beneficial uses of pornography for marriages, or at least the sort of sexually explicit media that serves to instruct couples, and often wives, about sexuality and intimacy. It could be that more-religious couples, feeling the need to avoid all such material, actually miss out on these benefits and in some ways negatively affect their marriage quality. Compliance with Ethical Standards Conflict of interest The author declares that he/she has no conflict of interest. Ethical Approval This article does not contain any studies with human participants by any of the authors. Secondary data are used.
Appendix See Tables 5 and 6.
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Arch Sex Behav Table 5 Ordinary least squares regression predicting religious bonding between spouses using spouses’ self-reported religiosity Predictors
Model 1
Model 2
b Spousal religiosity
.70***
SE
b
.11
.28
b
SE
b
-.22
.14
-.09
Spousal religiosity 9 scripture inspired
.70**
.22
.44
Spousal religiosity 9 attendance
.12**
.04
.45 -.12
Evangelical (reference) Mainline protestant
-1.27***
.36
-.15
-1.04**
.35
Black protestant
-1.65*
.70
-.12
-1.52*
.68
-.11
Other protestant Catholic
-1.08? -1.17***
.64 .31
-.06 -.17
-.86 -.99***
.62 .30
-.05 -.14
Jewish
-.64
.81
-.03
-.51
.79
-.02
Other
-.15
.48
-.01
-.07
.46
-.01
None
-.36
.40
-.04
-.52
.39
-.06
-1.26*
.63
-.20
Scripture inspired
.60*
.26
.10
Religious service attendance
.50***
.06
.37
.09
.15
.06
Age
.00
.01
.01
.01
.01
.02
Male
.04
.21
.01
.09
.21
.02
Black
.67
.54
.06
.94?
Hispanic
.79*
.36
.08
.88*
.35
.09
Asian
.18
.39
.02
.25
.38
.02
-.47
-.48
1.29
-.01
White (reference)
Native American
1.33
-.01
Bachelors or higher
.56*
.25
.90
Household income South
-.08** .25
.03 .22
-.10 .04
Intercept
2.00***
.62
Adjusted R
2
N
53
.09
.47?
.24
.07
-.08** .20
.03 .22
-.11 .03
4.32***
.73
.46
.50
490
490
b = unstandardized coefficients, b = standardized coefficients ?
p B .10; * p B .05; ** p B .01; *** p B .001 (two-tailed tests)
Table 6 Binary logistic regression predicting pornography viewing in the past year using spouses’ self-reported religiosity Predictors
Spousal religiosity
Model 1a
Model 2
OR
SE
b
.77*
.12
-.52
Religious bonding
SE
b
.85
.13
-.29
.83***
.06
-.79b
OR
Religion controls
H
H
Sociodemographic controls
H
H
Satisfied with sex life
H
H
Nagelkerke pseudo R2
.36
.39
N
481
481
OR = odds ratios with standard errors in parentheses, b = fully standardized logistic regression coefficients * p B .05; *** p B .001 (two-tailed tests) a
Model 1 reproduces Model 3 from Table 2. All controls were included. Model 2 is only different in that it adds religious bonding activities between spouses
b
Religious bonding was the third strongest predictor in the model behind only male and age. Full results available upon request
123
Arch Sex Behav
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