Sexual addiction, sexual compulsivity, sexual impulsivity, or what? Toward a theoretical model

Journal of Sex Research, August, 2004 by John Bancroft, Zoran Vukadinovic

Materials

All male participants completed the following two questionnaires.

The Mood and Sexuality Questionnaire (MSQ; Bancroft, Janssen, Strong, Carnes, et al., 2003a; Bancroft, Janssen, Strong, Vukadinovic, 2003). This instrument is a trait measure that asks respondents to indicate what typically happens to (a) sexual interest and (b) erectile responsiveness when they are depressed (MS-1 and MS-2) and when they are anxious or stressed (MS-3 and MS-4; e.g., "When you have felt depressed what typically happens to your sexual interest/response?"). Each item is answered on a bipolar scale with 5 indicating no change, 1 marked reduction, and 9 marked increase. The range for each individual item is, therefore, 1 to 9, and for the sum score (MS-total) of the four scales, 4 to 36 (Cronbach's [alpha] = .85). For each mood state, there is a box to check if the subject has never been depressed (or anxious) enough to find out. Subjects checking this box are excluded from analyses involving this variable. We reported only MS-1 and MS-3 in this paper.

Sexual Inhibition/Sexual Excitation Scales (SIS/SES; Janssen et al., 2002a, b). This questionnaire, with 45 items, measures three factors: (a) propensity for sexual excitation (SES; range = 20-80); (b) propensity for sexual inhibition due to the threat of performance failure (SIS1; range = 14-56); and (c) propensity for sexual inhibition due to the threat of performance consequences (SIS2; range = 11-44). The response for each item ranges from 1 = strongly agree to 4 = strongly disagree. Cronbach alphas for the three scales are .88, .83, and .66, respectively. Scores on each of these scales are close to normally distributed in the approximately 2,500 men we have so far tested. The scales have good discriminant validity with only modest overlap with measures of global traits of behavioral inhibition, harm avoidance, and reward responsivity.

The following questionnaire was completed by the SAA volunteers and all the age-matched controls, but not the clinic sex addicts.

Zemore Depression Proneness Ratings (ZDPR; Zemore, Fischer, Garratt, & Miller, 1990). This is a trait measure of propensity for depression in terms of frequency and severity. We used the 13-item version. All questions begin, "Compared to most people you know...." Three of the questions conclude, (a) "... how often do you get depressed?"; (b) "... how long do your depressions last?"; and (c) "... how deeply depressed do you become?" Ten further questions ask how often the participant experiences a variety of depressive symptoms (e.g., feeling discouraged about the future, feeling guilty or unworthy). Each question is answered on a Likert-type scale from 1 (e.g., much less) to 9 (e.g., much more), with 5 indicating the same "as others you know." The range of scores on this measure is therefore 13 to 117. Zemore et al. (1990) reported on the reliability and validity of the ZDPR. Factor analysis showed a single factor structure accounting for 44% of the variance with a Cronbach alpha coefficient of .90.