It was once believed that only substances like alcohol, cocaine, and nicotine could develop into genuine addictions. But what about certain behaviors like gambling and viewing pornography?
According to a growing number of addiction experts, both substances and behaviors can be addictive. Sure, toxic substances may have additional negative effects on the body that behaviors do not, but addiction is about out of control behavior, not damage to the body.
It is well documented in the addiction field that if you show an addict something related to their addiction (what scientists call a “cue”) they would pay more attention to the cue than a non-addict. This makes sense, as addicts tend to think about and pursue their addiction so often that they eventually neglect responsibilities and lose interest in other things essential for health and wellbeing. Put simply, an addict’s brain “values” their addiction over everything else in life, so they give it more attention.
Researchers at Cambridge University investigated whether or not individuals with compulsive sexual behavior (compulsive pornography use) would pay greater attention to sexually explicit cues compared to healthy controls, similar to how drug addicts pay greater attention to cues associated with their addiction.
To do this, they had 22 subjects with compulsive sexual behavior and 44 healthy volunteers perform a commonly used test for addictive disorders that measures attention, known as a “dot probe task.”
During a dot-probe task, subjects are shown two images simultaneously on a computer screen, one image associated with the addiction being studied, and one neutral image. Then, a green dot appears where one of the pictures was located. The subjects have to identify as quickly as possible what side the dot appears on. If the green dot appears on the same side as an image an addict associates with their addiction appears on (a conditioned cue), the addict will have a faster reaction time than a healthy control because, in theory, the addict’s attention will be more focused on that side of the screen.
This particular Cambridge study had subjects view several types of images: sexually explicit (consensual sexual interactions between men and women), erotic (nude woman), neutral person (dressed woman), and neutral controls (pictures of a chair).
As the researchers expected, the subjects with compulsive sexual behavior show greater attention to sexually explicit cues, but not to neutral cues. That means the CSB subjects had the fastest response times when the dot appeared where the pornographic image was located. The authors suggested this is a result of conditioning, where “the conditioned stimulus eventually elicits a conditioned response such as physiological arousal or craving.”
This was the second study out of Cambridge looking at compulsive pornography users that found evidence that pornography addiction is a legitimate disorder. In a previous study, researchers at Cambridge found CSB subject’s brains react to cues in the same way drug addict’s brains react to cues associated with their addiction.
The researchers pointed out that these findings, taken together, support the existence of pornography addiction. In conclusion, they said:
“These studies together provide support for an incentive motivation theory of addiction underlying the aberrant response towards sexual cues in CSB.”
Given the fact that this research is showing pornography may be changing the brains of some users in the same way addictive drugs do, this should have everyone’s attention.
Want to Learn More About the Health Harms of Pornography Addiction?
Sign up to get educational emails delivered straight to your inbox!
