I am beginning a project in which participants will watch pornography. Any tips for me (such as validated/approved clips to use)? We are in the beginning stages of the project and could use any advice you have to give.
A fairly recent neuroscience study was using still images rather than videos, but it may be worth checking their criteria for pornographic images to include.
Modulation of late positive potentials by sexual images in problem users and controls inconsistent with “porn addiction”
Nicole Prausea, , , Vaughn R. Steeleb, Cameron Staleyc, Dean Sabatinellid, Greg Hajcake
a University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
b The Mind Research Network, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
c Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID, USA
d University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
e Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
Received 16 June 2014, Revised 7 May 2015, Accepted 12 June 2015, Available online 18 June 2015
Outside of this, my only recommendation would be to define the scope of your study well and find justification for the type of clip you need. If you're looking to just generate arousal, many things like gender or sexual preference can play an important role in what is stimulating. In this way you might find that individual differences have a large effect on your sample. So I might suggest addressing this limitation by fixing your scope at a level that it does not have a/as much impact, i.e. "Participants were shown heterosexual pornography that depicted only vaginal intercourse to explore effect X. Effect X was evaluated to only be evaluatable based on this type of intercourse, and other types of intercourse did not lend themselves to testing the research question."
A little difficult to be specific without the research question, but you get the idea.
Best of luck with your study.
There are many sex research studies that have used pornographic video clips as stimuli. As the others have pointed out, you could contact previous authors to find out what clips they used.
The most important question is what you need the stimuli for. If it's simply to elicit sexual arousal, then any good-quality clips from a mainstream pornography source will do (e.g., we have bought DVDs and then sampled relevant scenes).
It's trickier but still feasible if you require stimuli differing in variables of interest. For example, in the linked study, we selected video clips that systematically varied the gender of the actors (male-female, female-female, male-female) and the type of sexual activity depicted (nude only, solitary masturbation, intercourse).
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/93/6/1108/
A key issue is ethical human rights. Be familiar with the Belmont report and be sure to go through an IRB and have a well-constructed consent form. People have different definitions of pornography so be sure they know what they will be seeing. I heard someone say that they couldn't define pornography, but they'd know it if they saw it. Just in case the movies trigger adverse reactions, have a trained therapist or other means of dealing with it. This might seem like alot of precautions, but in your study I feel it is probably needed to protect the participants and you.
Steve - the IRB is a must (in fact, I am on the board at my university), but I appreciate the heads-up about the different definitions. I will make sure we are VERY clear.
Michael - thanks for the information (and that is a very interesting study)!
Hunter - I am aware of the study. It's a good one!
Margaret - thanks for the tip!
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