Robert Tokunaga

This study examined different conceptual and operational definitions of problematic Internet use (PIU). 3 perspectives of PIU are described along with a meta-analytic review (K = 112) conducted to explore the implications stemming from how PIU is measured. The results offer evidence to support the construct validity of measures developed from the i...

This chapter reviews the contributions of communication research in the study of Internet addiction, problematic Internet use, and deficient self-regulation. A history of media addictions is presented, with Internet addiction and its later refinements situated in their appropriate historical context. The study of Internet addiction, problematic Int...

Losses of self-control over Internet use, indicative of Internet habits, have caught the attention of the public for some time. A large collection of studies that theorize about and test the associations between psychosocial problems and Internet habits has been amassed over the last two decades. A meta-analytic review was used to determine the ave...

This paper presents meta-analytic findings on pornography consumption and impersonal sexual attitudes and behaviors. Results were based on more than 70 reports spanning over 40 years of research. Data from 13 countries were located, with attitudinal results from more than 45,000 participants and behavioral results from over 60,000 participants. Por...

This study explores how the number of status updates and markers of approval on social networking site profiles affect observers’ impressions of a profile owner’s personality and character. Using signaling theory and Brunswik’s lens model, the broader aim of this study was to examine whether the presentation of content on profiles affects inference...

Pornography is one of the most popular forms of media and pornography research is common in high impact sexological journals. Many studies on U.S. adults’ pornography consumption have utilized the National Science Foundation funded General Social Survey (GSS), which has provided nationally representative publicly available data since the early 1970...

Over the last decade, scholars across the social sciences have repeatedly implored authors to conduct and reviewers to prioritize the publication of replication studies. As scholars who have conducted multiple quantitative research synthesis studies, we believe that meta-analytic replications are an important element of replication science. To furt...

Methodologists from a variety of social and behavioral sciences have called attention to misunderstandings, misclassifications, and misapplications of third variable "controls" in observational research. We are unaware, however, of a comprehensive discussion of these issues in the sexological literature. In this article, we attempt to detail severa...

Using national probability data from the 2022 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, the present study evaluated whether moderators of the association between frequency of pornography exposure and condomless sex are consistent with the sexual script acquisition, activation, application model’s (3AM) suppositions about the facilitating effec...

This edited volume examines the ways in which rapidly changing technologies and patterns of media use influence, and are influenced by, our emotional experiences. Following introductory chapters outlining common conceptual frameworks used in the study of emotion and digital media effects, this book is then organized around four general areas highli...

This edited volume examines the ways in which rapidly changing technologies and patterns of media use influence, and are influenced by, our emotional experiences. Following introductory chapters outlining common conceptual frameworks used in the study of emotion and digital media effects, this book is then organized around four general areas highli...

Sexual behavior and religious practice are fundamental social dynamics of longstanding interest to communication scholars. Drawing insights from the Reinforcing Spirals Model (RSM) and Sexual Script Acquisition, Activation, Application Model (3AM), this study examined whether (a) religiosity operated primarily as a predictor of later pornography co...

Research on parental knowledge and positive adolescent adjustment suggests that more accurate levels of the former increase the likelihood of the latter. Despite a significant body of literature correlating adolescent pornography use with negative adolescent adjustment, however, only a handful of studies have compared parents’ beliefs about their c...

Sexual choking, which is a form of strangulation, can lead to various health consequences, including death. Recent surveys suggest that sexual choking is prevalent among young U.S. adults, a demographic also likely to view pornography. Pornography professionals, social commentators, and scholars have noted that mixed-gender choking is normative in...

The ills of modeling variables substantively involved in a causal process as “controls” have been discussed extensively by social scientists who do not study media. Until recently, Slater was one of the few communication scientists to suggest that media effects scholars engage in overcontrol. Bushman and Anderson have now echoed this concern in the...

One of the most consistent findings in content analyses of popular, commonly consumed pornography is the near absence of condoms. A recent meta-analysis found that pornography use is associated with an increased likelihood of condomless sex, but the studies available for analysis rarely included measures of potential cognitive mediators underlying...

Social media habits represent one of the most common – and controversial – forms of habitual behavior in contemporary society. In this brief article, we summarize the state of research on social media habits, along with their position within the technology habit literature. First, we review the wide range of positive and negative behaviors falling...

Approximately a decade ago, Wright and colleagues published three studies probing the nature of the relationship between heterosexual U.S. adults’ attitudes toward homosexuality and pornography consumption. Adopting an “effects” perspective (while acknowledging the nonexperimental nature of their data), they reasoned that pornography use could eith...

Many researchers interested In the socializing effects of pornography have found heuristic utility in the sexual script acquisition, activation, application model (3AM) of mediated sexual socialization. Studies have emphasized overall pornography/sexual behavior associations, however, rather than mediating sexual beliefs that a 3AM perspective sugg...

This study examined U.S. adolescents’ pornography consumption, pornography dependency, and belief in a variety of notions contradicted by basic sexological science. Data were from 595 youth aged 14–18 who participated in a population-based probability survey. Consistent with the sexual script acquisition, activation, application model (3AM) of sexu...

While recent meta-analyses have provided answers to a number of historically contentious debates about correlates of pornography use, several questions remain unanswered. Whether pornography is associated with sexual functioning is one such question. Informed by theorizing on sexual scripting, social comparisons, and sexual objectification, the pre...

Research finding that pornography use is associated with lower sexual satisfaction is common; evaluation of the mechanisms hypothesized as underlying the association is not. Informed by multiple theoretical perspectives, the present study tested a conceptual model positing that (a) regularly consuming pornography conditions the user’s arousal templ...

Objectives: Sexual satisfaction is an important component of sexual health and wellbeing across the life course, including adolescence. While research on pornography use and sexual satisfaction has become increasingly common, the vast majority of studies have focused on adults. An additional limitation of studies to date is a lack of assessment of...

Media habits provide an alternate explanation to rational‐based models of media selection. These habits are learned media routines emerging after repeated media consumption that are cued by internal and/or external stimuli. Media habit formation involves the complex storage of specific media‐related behavioral sequences as mental representations in...

This paper presents meta-analytic findings on the association between pornography consumption and condomless sex. Results were based on 45 reports spanning two decades. Data from 18 countries, with a participant total of over 35,000, were located. Higher levels of pornography consumption were associated with an elevated likelihood of engaging in co...

This paper reports the results of three meta-samples investigating U.S. adults’ pornography consumption, attitudes toward teen sex, and support for teen access to birth control. Findings were based on multiple independent samples totaling more than 11,000 people. Pragmatic motivations included examining what public health advocacy groups would cons...

Are the relational, sexual, body, and self satisfaction of heterosexual women affected by their partners’ pornography consumption? And if so, how? These questions have been asked of women in smaller-scale, qualitative investigations for some time, and are being asked increasingly in larger-scale, quantitative studies. Mirroring the general trend in...

Social and clinical psychologists are increasingly examining the influence of pornography on sexual health outcomes. An important sexual health outcome that some scholars have suggested is influenced by pornography is sexual satisfaction. Guided by sexual script theory, social comparison theory, and informed by prior research on pornography, social...

A classic question in the communication literature is whether pornography consumption affects consumers' satisfaction. The present paper represents the first attempt to address this question via meta-analysis. Fifty studies collectively including more than 50,000 participants from 10 countries were located across the interpersonal domains of sexual...

Research on cyberbullying has been steadily growing among scholars who endeavor to understand when and under what conditions it occurs. This study utilizes general aggression theory to contribute to a better theoretical understanding of the confluence of inputs that goes into decision-making involving cyberbullying perpetration. Young adult college...

Elements of the sexual script acquisition, activation, application model (³AM) of sexual media socialization have been tested in many recent studies. Two core suppositions of the model are in need of further examination, however. The first is the assertion that exposure to sexual media can affect behavioral judgments beyond the specific behaviors t...

A recent White House Council Report on Women and Girls called attention to sexual assault on college campuses and encouraged continued research on this important public health problem. Media that sexually objectify women have been identified by feminist scholars as encouraging of sexual assault, but some researchers question why portrayals that do...

Surveillance has long been used as a way to guard against dangers lurking in one’s immediate environment. Humans have carried over this evolutionarily adaptive solution to the maintenance of their interpersonal relationships. The landscape of relational surveillance has dramatically changed with the inception of Internet platforms, such as social n...

Seminal studies concerning the Internet brought legitimacy to public concerns about its dissocializing effects. Although the negative social and professional outcomes of the Internet are still attributed to the time users spend online, scholars have more recently turned their attention to media habits in explaining these effects. This investigation...

Sexual scripts in pornography rarely include condoms. Many U.S. college students consume pornography and have unprotected sex. Yet no study appears to have investigated whether pornography consumption is correlated with having unprotected sex among U.S. college students. This article reports results from two studies of pornography consumption and c...

Whether pornography consumption is a reliable correlate of sexually aggressive behavior continues to be debated. Meta-analyses of experimental studies have found effects on aggressive behavior and attitudes. That pornography consumption correlates with aggressive attitudes in naturalistic studies has also been found. Yet, no meta-analysis has addre...

Romantic relationship dissolution can be stressful, and social networking sites make it difficult to separate from a romantic partner online as well as offline. An online survey (N = 431) tested a model synthesizing attachment, investment model variables, and post-dissolution emotional distress as predictors of interpersonal surveillance (i.e., “Fa...

This experimental study tested whether exposure to female centerfold images causes young adult males to believe more strongly in a set of beliefs clinical psychologist Gary Brooks terms “the centerfold syndrome.” The centerfold syndrome consists of five beliefs: voyeurism, sexual reductionism, masculinity validation, trophyism, and nonrelational se...

Cyberstalking research has revealed information about who is perpetrating what offense to whom. This study adds to research on cyberstalking by exploring how victims respond to the unwanted pursuit. The reflections of cyberstalking victims were content analyzed to answer research questions about different risk management behaviors, their effectiven...

Online information-seeking strategies are well understood in the context of health information acquisition but less is known about the information management of interpersonal information gathered over the Internet. One way to understand this nascent method for information seeking is to examine the motives that underlie one’s intent to seek online i...

This study surveyed German heterosexual men's interest and engagement in a variety of dominant behaviors observed in recent analyses of pornography. Interest in watching popular pornographic movies or more frequent consumption of pornography was associated with men's desire to engage in or having already engaged in behaviors such as hair pulling, s...

Social networking sites have demonstrated considerable utility to Internet users who wish to form or maintain interpersonal relationships online, but the qualities of these Internet platforms can also give rise to negative interactions between contacts. Perceptible relational problems, such as strain and changes to relational rules, originate from...

Pornography consumption may affect judgments on a wide range of sexual and reproductive topics. The present study hypothesized that the consistent images projected in pornography affect sexual scripts related to abortion judgments. National, three-wave longitudinal data gathered from U.S. adults were employed to examine associations between earlier...

Concerns about the problematic nature of internet use have been discussed since the inception of the internet. Internet addiction, problematic internet use (PIU), and the deficient self-regulation of internet use are some issues studied in this domain. Some regard these conditions as genuine disorders that cause disruptions in one’s life. Others cr...

Extramarital sex is one of the most commonly cited reasons for divorce. U.S. adults who have more positive extramarital sex attitudes are more likely to engage in extramarital sex. Given pornography’s positive portrayal of extramarital sex, several recent studies have explored whether people who consume pornography have a more positive attitude tow...

This study compared views on homosexuality among US adults who varied in their consumption of pornography. Nationally representative cross-sectional data generated by the General Social Survey (GSS) between 2000 and 2012 were employed. Pornography consumers expressed more positive attitudes toward gay individuals' civil liberties, more moral accept...

This article extends theory on the deficient self-regulation (DSR) of Internet use and media habits by integrating predictors relevant to technology use. It introduces novelty perceptions of a technology and flow as conditions that increase the likelihood of experiencing DSR and media habits. An experiment, with between- and within-subjects compone...

Social network sites (SNSs) are commonly used to maintain existing relationships and form connections with new contacts. Recently, concerns of have been expressed over the way these Web-based technologies are used. Estimates suggest that people are increasingly using SNSs for engaging in the surveillance of others. Given the relatively high rates o...

Social networking sites (SNSs) provide the ideal infrastructure for the maintenance of existing relationships and the development of new contacts. Although these Web-based technologies supplement offline relationships, several of their characteristics have the potential to provoke negative experiences. The interpersonal strain and other relational...

This article reports tests of the relationships between problematic Internet use (PIU), time spent using the Internet, and psychosocial problems from the two perspectives. Ten individual meta-analyses were first conducted to identify weighted mean correlations among the five variables included within the models. The correlations derived from the me...

The global village metaphor, originally popularized by Marshall McLuhan, suggests that individuals connected to information and communication technologies become more involved with others from around the world. The speed at which messages are communicated is one factor why Internet-supported technologies create a sense of community. The diffusion o...

The study explored the influence of self-construals, a well-investigated and important dimension of culture, on the process of feeling and responding to hurt. Participants responded to a survey measuring self-construals, overall hurt feelings, mood, attributions, and relational consequences. The findings revealed that interdependence was positively...