A new study has found that religious people are more likely to have a perceived internet pornography addiction, when compared with their less spiritual peers.
The study's lead author Joshua Grubbs, a doctoral student in psychology at Case Western Reserve University, said that they were surprised that the amount of viewing did not impact the perception of addiction, but strong moral beliefs did.
In three studies, Grubbs polled people about their strength of faith, religious practices, online porn-viewing habits and moral attitudes about porn.
One study involved 331 undergraduates at a public U.S. university, another focused on 97 students at a religiously affiliated university, and a third involved 208 adults gathered in an online poll.
It was found that there was no connection between the religious devotion of the participants and how much porn they actually viewed.
However, the study found stronger religious faith was linked with more negative moral attitudes about pornography, which in turn was associated with greater perceived addiction.
The researchers speculated that feelings of addiction could be seen as the religious individual's pathological interpretation of a behavior deemed a transgression or a desecration of sexual purity.
The study was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
