Empirical Evidence and Theoretical Considerations on Factors Contributing to Cybersex Addiction From a Cognitive-Behavioral View

Abstract

The nature of a phenomenon often called cybersex addiction (CA) and its mechanisms of development are discussed. Previous work suggests that some individuals might be vulnerable to CA, while positive reinforcement and cue-reactivity are considered to be core mechanisms of CA development. In this study, 155 heterosexual males rated 100 pornographic pictures and indicated their increase of sexual arousal. Moreover, tendencies towards CA, sensitivity to sexual excitation, and dysfunctional use of sex in general were assessed. In a latent structural equation model, dysfunctional use of sex mediated the relationship of sexual excitability with CA. The results of the study show that there are factors of vulnerability to CA and provide evidence for the role of sexual gratification and dysfunctional coping in the development of CA. According to the results and theoretical considerations, we present a cognitive-behavioral model of CA addressing factors of vulnerability, the role of cognitions, and the role of positive and negative reinforcement.

Internet-Communication Disorder: It's a Matter of Social Aspects, Coping, and Internet-Use Expectancies

“…Additionally, the mediation effects which were found in the course of this study have already been supposed for a generalized Internet addiction (Brand et al, 2014a) and cybersex addiction (Laier and Brand, 2014). Nevertheless, the relevance of individual aspects like psychopathological, personality, and social aspects differs.…”

“…A main conclusion is that the theoretical model of Internet-use disorder (Brand et al, 2014b) could be transferred to ICD, similar to the cybersex addiction case (Laier and Brand, 2014). The modification of this theoretical model into a specific Internet-use disorder, which emphasizes the use of specific, preferred applications, could facilitate the understanding of individual mechanisms.…”

“…As a result, the excessive use of the preferred application can be increased, resulting in a diminished control and a reduced stabilization of the person's core characteristics (Brand et al, 2016). Some parts of the theoretical process model and its previous version (Brand et al, 2014b) have already been tested empirically with respect to cybersex addiction by Laier and Brand (2014), addictive use of SNS by Wegmann et al (2015), and generalized Internet addiction by Brand et al (2014a) using a structural equation modeling approach. The results for generalized Internet addiction showed that coping style and Internet-use expectancies completely mediate the effects of personality and psychopathological aspects on a generalized Internet addiction (Brand et al, 2014a).…”

Characteristics of self-identified sexual addicts in a behavioral addiction outpatient clinic

“…A nuance to our interpretation of the comorbidity-related results is provided by the finding that “escape real life/cope” (i.e., negative reinforcement) was the second factor promoting addictive sexual behaviors after “search for pleasure/arousal” (i.e., positive reinforcement). This latter result supports the importance of sexual gratification in the sexual addiction process and highlights the value of the conjoint role of positive (i.e., sexual gratification) and negative reinforcement (i.e., reducing aversive emotions or states) in excessive sexual activities (Laier & Brand, 2014). …”

Cybersexsucht

“…B. "Accessibility", "Affordability" und "Anonymity", was auch als "Triple-A-Engine" für den Bereich Internetsex bekannt wurde [13] [10,17]. Ebenso gibt es Berichte, dass Personen, die zu einem hypersexuellen Verhalten offline neigen, auch häufig (exzessiv) Onlinesexangebote nutzen [10,22].…”