Little is known about whether withdrawal-like symptoms manifest when regular pornography users attempt to abstain from pornography. The present study used a randomized controlled design to examine whether (1) negative abstinence effects that may be potentially reflective of withdrawal-related symptoms manifest when a non-clinical sample of regular pornography users attempt to abstain from pornography for a 7-day period and (2) these negative abstinence effects would only manifest (or manifest more strongly) for those with higher levels of problematic pornography use (PPU). A total of 176 undergraduate students (64.2% female) who were regular pornography users (defined as having used pornography ≥ three times a week in the past 4 weeks) were randomly assigned to an abstinence group (instructed to attempt abstinence from pornography for 7 days, n = 86) or a control group (free to watch pornography as usual, n = 90). Participants completed measures of craving, positive and negative affect, and withdrawal symptoms at baseline and each night of the 7-day period. Contrary to the confirmatory hypotheses, there were no significant main effects of group (abstinence vs. control) or group × PPU interaction effects on any of the outcome measures, controlling for baseline scores. These findings indicate that no evidence of withdrawal-related symptoms was found for abstaining participants, and this was not dependent on level of PPU. However, exploratory analyses showed a significant three-way interaction (group × PPU × past 4-week frequency of pornography use [FPU]) on craving, where an abstinence effect on craving was found at high levels of PPU only once past 4-week FPU reached the threshold of daily use. While these exploratory findings should be interpreted with caution, they suggest that abstinence effects could potentially manifest when there is a combination of high PPU and high FPU—a hypothesis that warrants investigation in future prospective abstinence studies.

当经常观看色情内容的人试图戒掉色情内容时，是否会出现戒断症状，​​目前还不清楚。本研究使用随机对照设计来检验（1）当定期色情内容使用者的非临床样本尝试在 7 天期间戒除色情内容时，是否会出现可能反映戒断相关症状的负面戒断效果，以及(2) 这些负面的禁欲效应只会在那些使用有问题的色情内容 (PPU) 水平较高的人身上显现出来（或更强烈地显现出来）。共有 176 名经常使用色情内容（定义为过去 4 周内每周使用色情内容≥ 3 次）的本科生（64.2% 为女性）被随机分配到戒断组（被指示尝试戒除色情内容 7 天） ,n  = 86）或对照组（像往常一样免费观看色情内容，n = 90）。参与者在基线和 7 天期间的每晚完成了对渴望、积极和消极情绪以及戒断症状的测量。与验证性假设相反，在控制基线分数的情况下，组（禁欲与对照组）或组× PPU 交互作用对任何结果指标均没有显着的主效应。这些发现表明，没有发现戒断参与者出现戒断相关症状的证据，并且这与 PPU 水平无关。然而，探索性分析显示，对渴望的影响存在显着的三向交互作用（群体 × PPU × 过去 4 周使用色情内容的频率 [FPU]），其中仅在过去 4 周的一次高水平 PPU 中发现对渴望的禁欲效果。 FPU达到了日常使用的门槛。