Strength of Pornography Craving Experience (PCE-S): The validation of a new specific measure

Résumé En

Pornography use remains a common sexual activity with potentially addictive use in part of some people. Even though craving is being recognized as an important characteristic of addictive behaviors, we note a lack of a specific validated instrument measuring the pornography craving experience. The present study aimed at adapting and validating an instrument measuring the users' strength of pornography craving experience (PCE-S). Items from the "strength" part of the Craving Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) were adapted to pornography use and used to create the PCE-S. The PCE-S was then administered online to 1584 Englishspeaking participants aged 18 to 75 years old (M = 33.18; SD = 10.84]; 63.1% male, 35.2% female, and 1.7% non-binary). All participants completed an assessment of the Compulsive Cyberporn Use (CIUS adapted for cyberporn). Confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) was used to examine the construct structure validity; Cronbach alpha coefficient, corrected itemtotal correlation, and discriminant analysis were used to assess the instrument's psychometric properties. After using the modification indices to improve the initial model, a relatively good fit for the three-factor model was confirmed. Concurrent validity with the compulsive cyberporn use (CCU) measure was demonstrated. The PCE-S discriminated between participants with high CCU scores and others with low CCU scores. A specific pornography craving experience instrument scale, based on the Elaborated Intrusion theory of desire seems to capture key constructs of the theory and correlate with measures of compulsive cyberporn use.