Addiction or Transgression? Moral Incongruence and Self-Reported Problematic Pornography Use in a Nationally Representative Sample

pornography use may qualify for the new diagnosis of Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder (CSBD) in the forthcoming ICD-11. There is also evidence, however, that moral incongruence (i.e., a misalignment of moral beliefs about sexual behavior and actual sexual behavior) may inflate self-reports of problems associated with pornography use. Prior work suggests religiousness may drive such moral incongruence. Using a large sample matched to U.S. representative norms (Total: N=2,519; past-year pornography users: N=1,424, 66.4% men), the present work examined the interaction between pornography use and religiousness in predicting self-reported addiction to pornography. Results indicated that religiousness moderated the association between pornography use and self-reported addiction so that, despite a negative association between religiousness and use, at higher levels of religiousness, pornography use was more strongly related to self-reports of addiction.