Watching pornography on a work computer seems like such a crazy thing to do it’s hard to imagine anyone bonkers enough to do so, yet a few years ago I wrote about a report from security firm ThreatTrack, which revealed that 40% of security professionals had encountered malware on the devices of senior executives that had been downloaded after visiting an adult website.

Recent research from the BYU Marriott School highlights just how dangerous such behaviors can be to a business.  The research shows that employees who happily watch adult material at work, are also likely to engage in a wide range of other unethical behaviors, which in turn are strongly linked to a host of negative organizational outcomes, such as fraud and collusion.

“Pornography is often framed as an issue affecting only individuals and relationships outside of a business context,” the researchers explain. “But businesses are made up of people, and people make decisions and businesses function off the decisions people make. If you have a societal phenomenon that a lot of people are participating in and it negatively impacts individuals’ decisions, that has the potential to impact organizational-level outcomes.”

Ethical consequences

Some 200 volunteers participated in a live experiment, with a further 1,000 quizzed via a survey.  The experiment divided volunteers into groups, one of which was asked to recall and record their experience of viewing pornography.  A control group were asked to do the same, but for exercise rather than adult viewing.  Both groups were then tasked with watching a dull and monotonous video to the end.

The experiment found that 21% of those in the porn group failed to finish the video task, but lied about doing so.  This compares to just 8% in the control group, which represents a 163% difference.

Similar findings emerged from the survey, with those people exposed to adult material more prone to dehumanize others, and subsequently to engage in unethical behavior.  The rise in dehumanization has especially severe consequences for areas such as sexual harassment or the creation of hostile work environments.

“If you have a larger portion of your employees that are consuming pornography at work, it’s likely changing their behaviors and those changes are likely negative,” the authors explain. “Regardless of your stance on pornography, most people want to be good employees, they want to be fair to men and women and they don’t want to be unethical. That’s where we need to start the conversation. We need to refrain from viewing pornography to create work environments that are inclusive to all.”

They suggest a number of things that companies can do to reduce adult consumption in the workplace, including obviously filtering out adult content and implementing policies to prohibit consumption at work.  They also advocate hiring people who are less likely to view pornography, although it isn’t clear quite how you determine who is and is not likely to do so during the recruitment process.  Either way, they hope that by making the consequences clear, it will trigger action to be taken.

“Almost everyone cares about the #MeToo movement and women, but if you care about that, then you have to care about this issue too,” they conclude. “If your manager is regularly watching pornography at work, then our research suggests that your manager is more likely to objectify you, which is likely to be particularly detrimental to female employees.”