Do Varying Levels of Exposure to Pornography and Violence Have an Effect on Non-Conscious Emotion in Men?

As we are often inundated with images of violence and pornography in modern times with the aid of mobile devices and unrestricted online access and content, the non-conscious effect of such exposure is an area of concern. To date, many clinicians and researchers in behavioral sciences rely on consci...

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Published in:Archives of Sexual Behavior Vol. 49; no. 4; pp. 1215 - 1230
Main Authors: Kunaharan, Sajeev, Halpin, Sean, Sitharthan, Thiagarajan, Walla, Peter
Format: journal article
Published: Springer Nature May2020
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        10.1007/s10508-019-01550-8
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        atl: Do Varying Levels of Exposure to Pornography and Violence Have an Effect on Non-Conscious Emotion in Men?
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          Kunaharan, Sajeev
          Halpin, Sean
          Sitharthan, Thiagarajan
          Walla, Peter
        affil:
          School of Psychology, Centre for Translational Neuroscience and Mental Health Research, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia
          Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
          CanBeLab, Department of Psychology, Webster Vienna Private University, Palais Wenkheim, Praterstrasse 23, 1020, Vienna, Austria
      su:
        Violence
        Pornography
        Internet access
        Aggression (Psychology)
        Mobile communication systems
        Evoked potentials (Electrophysiology)
        Startle reaction
      sug:
        subj:
          Violence
          Pornography
          Internet access
          Aggression (Psychology)
          Wireless Telecommunications Carriers (except Satellite)
          Mobile communication systems
          Evoked potentials (Electrophysiology)
          Startle reaction
      keyword:
        Aggression
        Event-related potentials
        Implicit versus explicit responses
        Multi-methods
        Startle reflex modulation
        Aggression
        Event-related potentials
        Implicit versus explicit responses
        Multi-methods
        Startle reflex modulation
      ab: As we are often inundated with images of violence and pornography in modern times with the aid of mobile devices and unrestricted online access and content, the non-conscious effect of such exposure is an area of concern. To date, many clinicians and researchers in behavioral sciences rely on conscious responses from their clients to determine affective content. In doing so, they overlook the effect the non-conscious has on an individual's emotions. The present study aimed to examine variations in conscious and non-conscious responses to emotion-inducing images following varying amounts of exposure to violent and pornographic images. Eighteen participants who self-reported as being low pornography users were presented with emotion-inducing images after no exposure (Session 1), after one round of exposure to 50 pornographic and 50 violent images (Session 2) and after a further nine rounds of exposure to 50 pornographic and 50 violent images (Session 3). Sessions were temporally separated by at least 2 days while startle reflex modulation (SRM) and scalp-recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to determine non-conscious emotion-related responses to pre-evaluated emotion pictures. Explicit valence and arousal ratings were assessed for each of those emotion pictures to determine conscious emotion effects potentially changing as a function of increasing controlled exposure to pornographic and violent visual material. Conscious explicit ratings and SRM amplitudes revealed no significant difference between the sessions. However, frontal ERP analysis revealed significant changes between processing of "violent" and "unpleasant" images at later ERP time windows, further supporting the growing body of research which shows that relying on self-report data does not result in a full understanding of emotional responses.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: journal article
      src: R
    language: English
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