The role of disgust propensity in blood-injection-injury phobia: Comparisons between Asian Americans and Caucasian Americans

There is a growing body of evidence suggesting the potential role of disgust propensity in blood-injection-injury (BII) phobia. The current study examined associations between disgust propensity and BII phobia symptom severity in Caucasian Americans (n=310) and Asian Americans (n=223). Asian Americans typically scored higher than Caucasian Americans on the BII and disgust measures. The present study also examined the structural relations between gender, cultural background, disgust propensity, and BII phobia symptom severity. According to the structural equation model, disgust propensity was significantly related to levels of BII phobia symptom severity and fully mediated the relationships between BII phobia symptom severity and the demographic variables of gender and cultural background. The implications of the results for cultural refinements to our understanding of disgust propensity and BII phobia are discussed.     

Selective effects of excessive engagement in health-related behaviours on disgust propensity

The present study examined the extent to which engagement in health-related behaviours modulate disgust propensity, a purportedly stable personality trait. Participants were randomised into a health behaviour (n = 30) or control condition (n = 30). After a baseline period, participants in the health behaviour condition spent one week actively engaging in a clinically representative array of health-related behaviours on a daily basis, followed by a second week-long baseline period. Participants in the control condition monitored their normal use of health behaviours. Compared to control participants, those in the health behaviour condition reported significantly greater increases in disgust propensity after the health behaviour manipulation. This effect was most robust for contamination disgust propensity and remained significant when controlling for changes in health anxiety and disease fear. In contrast, self-disgust and anxiety sensitivity did not significantly differ between the two groups as a function of the health behaviour manipulation. Mediational analyses were consistent with the hypothesis that changes in the frequency of health-related behaviours, but not changes in health anxiety and disease fear, mediated the effects of the experimental manipulation on changes in contamination disgust propensity. These findings suggest that the purportedly stable personality trait of disgust propensity can be modulated by excessive engagement in health-related behaviours.     

The Disgust Scale-R: A valid and reliable index to investigate separate disgust domains?

The Disgust Scale (DS; Haidt, McCauley, & Rozin, 1994) is the most widely used instrument for assessing disgust propensity (i.e., individual tendency to experience disgust). Yet, psychometric evaluations of the DS are scarce while the literature shows that the reliability of its subscales are unacceptably low. Recently, it was suggested to reduce the number of subscales (Olatunji, Sawchuk, de Jong, & Lohr, 2007a). This study is a first exploration of this reduced three-factor solution in an independent sample. In study I, we examined whether a three-factor solution improves psychometric properties of the DS. Students from Maastricht University (N = 535) and the University of Groningen (N = 432) completed the DS. In study II, the DS was revised by dropping redundant items and revising its scoring format. The DS-R was administered to students from the University of Groningen (N = 472) and Ghent University (N = 41) to study its psychometric properties. The revisions improved the psychometric features of the DS, and showed that the DS-R is a valid and reliable index to establish core disgust, animal-reminder disgust, and contamination.     

Skin-transmitted pathogens and the heebie jeebies: evidence for a subclass of disgust stimuli that evoke a qualitatively unique emotional response

Skin-transmitted pathogens have threatened humans since ancient times. We investigated whether skin-transmitted pathogens were a subclass of disgust stimuli that evoked an emotional response that was related to, but distinct from, disgust and fear. We labelled this response “the heebie jeebies”. In Study 1, coding of 76 participants’ experiences of disgust, fear, and the heebie jeebies showed that the heebie jeebies was elicited by unique stimuli which produced skin-crawling sensations and an urge to protect the skin. In Experiment 2,350 participants’ responses to skin-transmitted pathogen, fear-inducing, and disgust-inducing vignettes showed that the vignettes elicited sensations and urges which loaded onto heebie jeebies, fear, and disgust factors, respectively. Experiment 3 largely replicated findings from Experiment 2 using video stimuli (178 participants). Results are consistent with the notion that skin-transmitted pathogens are a subclass of disgust stimuli which motivate behaviours that are functionally consistent with disgust yet qualitatively distinct.     

Emotion regulation of fear and disgust: differential effects of reappraisal and suppression

Although excessive fear has been central to traditional conceptualisations of the anxiety disorders, recent research suggests that disgust may also play a role in the development of some anxiety disorders. While dysregulation of emotion may confer risk for the development of anxiety disorders, it remains unclear if there are differences in the extent to which fear and disgust can be effectively regulated. To fill this important gap in the literature, unselected participants (N?=?95) experienced fear or disgust via video exposure, and they were instructed to employ either reappraisal or suppression to regulate their emotional experience while viewing the videos. For those exposed to fear-relevant content, change in emotional distress did not significantly differ between those that suppressed and those that reappraised. However, significantly less emotional distress was observed for those that reappraised compared to those that suppressed when exposed to disgust-relevant content. Although physiological arousal varied over time as a function of the emotional content of the videos, it did not vary as a function of emotion regulation strategy employed. These findings suggest that reappraisal may be especially effective in regulating verbal distress when exposed to disgusting cues in the environment. The implications of these findings for the treatment of anxiety disorders that are characterised by excessive disgust reactions will be discussed.     

“You make me sick”: Moral dyspepsia as a reaction to third-party sibling incest

A pilot study and two main studies lent support to the hypothesis that appraisals of consensual sibling incest as immoral may directly engender the phenomenological state of oral inhibition (OI), comprised of nausea, gagging, and diminished appetite. More specifically, the findings indicate that (a) OI is a central component of a third-party reaction to sibling incest (significantly more so than anger or fear), (b) that it is produced specifically by the morally proscribed aspect of the incestuous relationship (sex between two individuals with common ancestry), and that (c) it is produced so directly rather than as a by-product of a more immediate emotional response (say, intense anger or fear). Furthermore, Study 2 found equal levels of OI for individuals with and without opposite-sex siblings, indicating that third-party aversion to consensual incest is, most likely, a function of the culturally transmitted information regarding the inherent wrongness of such acts. John Sabini is deceased.     

Fear and disgust processing during repeated exposure to threat-relevant stimuli in spider phobia

Although disgust plays a significant role in the etiology of spider phobia, there remains a paucity of research examining the role of disgust in the treatment of spider phobia. Spider fearful participants (N = 46) were randomly assigned to a disgust (view vomit images) or neutral activation (view inanimate objects) condition. They were then repeatedly exposed to a videotaped tarantula, during which time their fear, disgust, and physiological levels were assessed repeatedly. Growth curve analyses indicated that repeated exposure led to significant declines in fear and disgust with no statistically significant differences between the two conditions. However, there was marginal evidence for decreased physiological arousal during repeated exposure among spider fearful participants in the disgust activation condition compared to those in the neutral condition. Reduction in disgust during exposure in the disgust activation condition remained significant after controlling for change in fear, whereas change in fear was no longer significant after controlling for change in disgust. However, the opposite pattern of relations between change in fear and disgust was observed in the neutral activation condition. Higher fear and disgust activation during exposure was also associated with higher fear and disgust responding on a subsequent behavioral task and higher spider fear and disgust at 3-month follow-up. Baseline trait disgust propensity also predicted fear and disgust parameters during repeated exposure. The implications of these findings for the role of disgust in the treatment of spider phobia are discussed.     

Disgust Sensitivity and Psychopathological Symptoms: Distinctions from Harm Avoidance

The present study examined the relationship between disgust sensitivity and symptoms of somatization, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, anger/hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism in a community sample. Participants (n = 121) completed the Disgust Scale-2, the Symptom Checklist-90, and the harm avoidance subscale of the Temperament and Character Inventory. Disgust sensitivity was found to be correlated with a broad range of psychopathological symptoms. However, results also indicated that these correlations were partially mediated by harm avoidance. That is, when controlling for levels of harm avoidance, the association between disgust sensitivity and psychopathological symptoms was either substantially reduced or became nonsignificant. These findings suggest that the tendency towards behavioral inhibition to avoid punishment and non-reward may partially account for the association between disgust sensitivity and a broad range of psychopathological symptoms.

Does threatening imagery sensitize distress during contaminant exposure?

Prominent models of fear focus on the role of cognition in the development and maintenance of maladaptive responses. Little research, however, has evaluated the impact of cognition on distress reduction. The current study uses an experimental design to examine the effect of different types of imagery (moving harm, static harm, and safety) on reduction of distress associated with a contaminating stimulus in a normal university sample. Results indicate that use of moving harm imagery sensitizes distress during a 30-min exposure, whereas static harm and safety imagery reduce distress. These findings demonstrate that cognitive factors can moderate affective response during exposure. Clinical implications for the treatment of anxiety disorders are discussed.     

The structure of disgust: domain specificity in relation to contamination ideation and excessive washing

The primary goal of the present study was to employ confirmatory factor analysis to compare two theoretical models regarding the factor structure of disgust (N=307). The two-factor model of Animal Reminder and Core disgust proposed by Rozin et al. (2000) demonstrated superior model fit over a one-factor model that has been implicated in prior research. However, contrary to theoretical predictions, categorizing Hygiene disgust as Core disgust rather than Animal Reminder disgust provided an overall better fit for the two-factor model. The second aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between the empirically derived two-factor model and contamination ideation and excessive washing using structural equation modeling. Findings indicated that the Contamination Ideation and Excessive Washing latent factor was specifically related to Core disgust (domain specific) and negatively related to Animal Reminder disgust. The relevance of these findings in the context of future research investigating the role of disgust in specific anxiety disorders is discussed.