Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Archives of Sexual Behavior https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-01550-8 ORIGINAL PAPER Do Varying Levels of Exposure to Pornography and Violence Have an Effect on Non‑Conscious Emotion in Men? Sajeev Kunaharan 1  · Sean Halpin 1  · Thiagarajan Sitharthan 2  · Peter Walla 1,3 Received: 5 January 2018 / Revised: 6 September 2019 / Accepted: 7 September 2019 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract 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 research- ers 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 “unpleas- ant” 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. Keywords Pornography · Aggression · Event-related potentials · Startle reflex modulation · Multi-methods · Implicit versus explicit responses Introduction Violent and pornographic material available to people is ubiq- uitous in the modern age. Violence and violent images are often portrayed as entertainment in movies and on television and its prevalence and effect is often unavoidable in print media. Access to pornography, on the other hand, has enjoyed a boom in recent times thanks to high-speed Internet services, Wi-Fi, and mobile devices ensuring accessibility, anonymity, and a wealth of content allowing for increased exposure to a vast array of legal content without fear of consequences or repercus- sions. Society’s increased and continued access and exposure to this content has the potential to alter our emotions, emo- tion perception, and emotional responses and perhaps become desensitized to its effect (Harper & Hodgins, 2016; Hilton & Watts, 2011; Koukounas & Over, 1993; Kunaharan & Walla, 2014). Several studies have attempted to determine whether increased exposure to violence (Bailey, West, & Anderson, 2011; Bartholow, Bushman, & Sestir, 2006; Carnagey, Ander- son, & Bushman, 2007; Elmore, 2014; Englehardt, Bartholow, Kerr, & Bushman, 2011; Stockdale, Morrison, Kmiecik, Gar- barino, & Silton, 2015; Wood, Griffiths, Chappell, & Davies, 2004) or pornography (Kühn & Gallinat 2014; Prause, Steele, Staley, & Sabatinelli, 2014; Prause, Steele, Staley, Sabatinelli, & Hajcak, 2015) has any effect on our emotions and whether * Peter Walla peter.walla@webster.ac.at 1 School of Psychology, Centre for Translational Neuroscience and Mental Health Research, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia 2 Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia 3 CanBeLab, Department of Psychology, Webster Vienna Private University, Palais Wenkheim, Praterstrasse 23, 1020 Vienna, Austria