Analytic Plan ------------- H1: On the basis of previous findings, and preliminary results, we expect that partners' attitudes towards pornography will moderate the association between actors' attitudes towards pornography and sexual satisfaction such that satisfaction will be lower when actors and partners are discrepant in their sexual attitudes. - Analysis: Analyzed with an multilevel modeling (MLM) approach to the actor-partner model (e.g., Kenny, Kashy, & Cook,2006), our initial model (Model 1) will involve the prediction of sexual satisfaction using an intercept, actors' and partners' attitudes towards pornography, and their interaction as fixed effects. This model will include a consideration of couple by actor and couple by partner random effects, but these elements will be dropped if they do not improve fit. The residual matrix will nest participant crossed with time within couples using a heterogenous first-order autoregressive structure to allow the residuals to correlate across measurement occasions and partners. H2: We have previously found that the interaction between actor and partner solitary pornography use wholly accounts for gendered actor and partner effects of solitary pornography use. Given our previous findings, we do not believe that the actor, partner, or actor by partner interaction effects involving attitudes towards pornography will be further moderated by gender. - Analysis: A consideration of gender will begin with the Model 1 outlined in H1 and will add gender, as well as interactions between gender and the actor effect, gender and the partner effect, and gender and the actor by partner interaction (Model 2). H2 will be tested by comparing the change in model fit between Model 1 and Model 2. If there are significant gender effects, random couple effects will also be considered for significant gendered components. The residual matrix will remain the same as in Model 1. RQ1: While our position is that the "effects" of pornography use in our previous models may be spurious, many contributors to the "harms-effects" literature (see Kohut, Campbell, & Fisher, 2016) would assume that pornography plays a causal role in the deterioration of relationships. Given these divergent perspectives, it seems prudent to consider the possibility that attitudes towards pornography may moderate the trajectory of sexual satisfaction over time. - To the extent that attitudes are correlated with solitary pornography use, a "harm-based" approach would argue that positive attitudes may "enhance" the decline in sexual satisfaction over time (as more positive attitudes reflect more pornography use which is the assumed determinant). Such a perspective would be supported by evidence that sexual satisfaction over time is negatively moderated by attitudes towards pornography use. - From an attitudes similarity perspective, however, alternative expectations are possible. In a newlywed couple, for example, one might expect that full awareness differences in attitudes between partners may have yet to fully emerge, especially with respect to attitudes towards sexual interests like pornography use. If that were true, the expected positive interaction between partners' attitudes towards pornography should increase over time reflecting increasing negative impacts of discordance in attitudes (relative to concordant attitudes) as partners learn more about one another. - On the other hand, few people wait until marriage to begin a sexual relationship with one another these days, so partners may already be aware of similarities / differences in each others attitudes towards pornography (or other closely related attitudes). In such circumstances, the interaction between partners' attitudes towards pornography use will either remain constant across time or decrease over time, depending largely on the (a) stability of attitudes and (b) the stability of the relationships between attitudes towards pornography and sexual satisfaction. The results of the preliminary analysis suggest that the interaction effects are likely consistent over time. - Analysis: Model 3 will begin with either Model 1 or Model 2, depending on the outcome of H2. Regardless, time components will be added as fixed effects to whichever model is selected, including a main effect for time, and interactions between time and the other components in the model. If the model fit improves with the addition of the time components, then relevant random couple effects will also be considered. The residual matrix will remain the same as in Model 1. RQ2: In our previous samples, we have been unable to find parabolic effects along the line of incongruence (see Shannock et al. 2010) between actors' and partners' pornography use. Such a pattern is relevant to the argument of concordance / discordance as positive interactions in a regression analysis tends to force the prediction of the midspace of the predicted plane to lie between the points of discordance and points of extreme concordance (concordant non-use of pornography and concordant use of pornography) resulting in a "saddle-shaped" plane of prediction. In the context of a positive interaction between actor and partner effects, a curvlinear line of incongruence has the potential to partially or fully mitigate this "dip" in the model. Due to the distribution of pornography use data that has been collected to date, predictions in this midspace (as well as the points of high frequency concordance) have had relatively large standard errors. This has made it difficult to determine if this dip represents a statistically significant deviation along the line of concordance, though formal tests suggest not. As attitudes towards pornography are generally less skewed than pornography use behaviour, this data presents an opportunity to revisit this issue. - Analysis: To explore this issue, we will conduct a Response Surface Analysis by adding quadratic actor and partner effects of attitudes towards pornography to Model 1. The curvlinear effect along the line of incongruence, and related significance test, will be calculated as per the formulas outlined in Shannock et al. (2010).