Department

Counseling and Human Services

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Date of Award

Fall 2023

Format

pdf

Degree Level

Ph.D.

LCSH subject

Internet pornography; Loneliness; Attachment behavior; Asian American college students

Proquest Document ID

30417584

Identifier

30417584 (Proquest ID)

School/University

St. Mary's University (San Antonio, Tex.)

Size or duration

345 pages

Document Type

Dissertation

First Advisor

Tubbs, Carolyn Y.

Abstract

Internet pornography consumption among Asian Indian Americans, an ethnic minority group, is largely underrepresented in current scholarly literature despite their growing population in the United States. The purpose of this research was threefold: (a) to measure the prevalence of internet pornography use among Asian Indian American young adults and adults; (b) to explore the relationship between internet pornography use, loneliness, and attachment patterns; and (c) to describe the lived experience of problematic porn consumers. Using an explanatory sequential mixed methods design, I conducted this study in two distinct phases: quantitative followed by qualitative. In the quantitative phase, I employed an online survey through Qualtrics. The participants (n = 327) constituted a nonprobability sample recruited from Indian based Christian churches and Asian Indian associations in the United States. In the qualitative follow-up phase, semistructured in-depth interviews were used to describe the lived experience of participants’ (n = 8) internet porn consumption to contextualize the initial quantitative results. The results indicated a significant and positive correlation between loneliness and attachment anxiety. The participants with insecure attachment styles (i.e., fearful, preoccupied, and dismissive) tended to consume pornography and experience loneliness significantly more than those with secure attachment styles. Using structural equation modeling, the results showed a significant path between attachment anxiety and pornography when mediated by loneliness. The qualitative follow-up study put some insight into the relationship between loneliness and pornography. Keywords: internet pornography use, loneliness, Asian Indian, attachment, U.S-born, immigrant

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