Credit: iStock - Alexandr Muşuc
New research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) suggests attitudes, particularly those that excuse harmful behaviour, may be a stronger predictor of willingness to create deepfake pornography than personality traits.
Deepfake pornography involves digitally altering images or videos to make it appear as though a person is involved in sexual content without their consent. It can have devastating impacts on victims, including emotional distress, reputational damage and serious violations of privacy.
A 2023 report by the cybersecurity firm Security Hero revealed a 464 per cent increase in deepfake pornography from 2022 to 2023, with 99 per cent of these videos featuring women.
The ECU research, led by Master of Clinical Psychology student Lorna Marns and supervised by psychology researcher Dr Ross Hollett, examined the psychological factors associated with the creation of sexually explicit deepfake images.
It involved an anonymous online survey of 213 heterosexual men. Participants answered questions about their attitudes, personality traits, and how likely they would be to create sexually explicit deepfake images in a range of fictional scenarios.
"The findings show that men who minimise or excuse harmful behaviour are more likely to say they would create deepfake pornography, but no links were found between dark personality traits such as narcissism and likelihood to create deepfake pornography," Ms Marns said.
"Participants also reported significantly greater willingness to create deepfake pornography when the person was a celebrity compared to someone they personally knew, suggesting that increased social distance reduces perceived harm or consequences."
Public awareness and education campaigns key
Dr Hollett said a key implication is that attitudes may be more important than personality traits in predicting the creation of deepfake pornography.
"This is promising because attitudes are easier to shift than personality traits. With effective public awareness and education about the risks and harms associated with creating and using deepfake pornography, it may be possible to reduce its negative impact, even among people with personality characteristics linked to manipulative or unempathetic behaviour," he said.
Dr Hollett said the study specifically explored beliefs that downplay or excuse harm in the context of people directly sharing or requesting intimate images amongst their personal networks. While these attitudes are relevant for understanding why some people also engage with deepfake pornography, further research is needed into why people create deepfake content using readily available online images and distribute this material beyond their own personal networks.
"Non-intimate photos are often enough to create deepfake content, so we need a better understanding of the motivations behind both creating and sharing this material," he said.
The paper, Exploring a potential link between personality traits, sexual assault attitudes and the propensity to create deepfake pornography, was published in the Journal of Sexual Aggression.
