Disgust propensity and disgust sensitivity: Separate constructs that are differentially related to specific fears

The identification of the relationship between nursing students' disgust sensitivity and willingness to care for the elderly: The case of a university

OBJECTIVES

In clinical learning environments, nursing students frequently encounter situations that cause physical disgust. It is believed that a high sensitivity to disgust among students can negatively affect their academic performance and caregiving behavior. This study was conducted to identify the relationship between nursing students' disgust sensitivity and willingness to care for older adults.

METHOD

This descriptive and cross-sectional research was conducted with 807 volunteer participants studying at the Department of Nursing of a university in southeast Turkey. The research data were collected by using the Personal Information Form, the Disgust Sensitivity Scale - Revised Form (DS-R), and the Willingness to Care for the Elderly Scale (WCES) . Descriptive statistics, the Student's t-test, the Mann-Whitney U test, the One-Way Analysis of Variance, and Pearson's correlation were used in the analysis of research data.

RESULTS

In the research, nursing students' mean DS-R and WCES scores were calculated respectively as 77.93 ± 16.40 and 34.16 ± 5.98 points. A statistically significant negative relationship was found between nursing students' DS-R and WCES scores (p < 0.05). In the research, there were statistically significant differences in nursing students' mean DS-R scores as per the variables of student gender and class year. Also, it was found that, as per the variables of student nationality and the status of assuming responsibility for the care of a sick or old relative, there were statistically significant differences in both nursing students' mean DS-R scores and their mean WCES scores (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

It was concluded that nursing students had high-level disgust sensitivity and medium-level willingness to care for an older adult. As the disgust sensitivity of the nursing students increased, their willingness to care for an older adult was negatively affected. Therefore, it is important that nurse educators evaluate nursing students' disgust sensitivity and help nursing students define and eliminate their disgust emotions.

Self-Disgust and Sexual Functioning: A Scenario-Based Study Testing the Ability of Sex-Related Experiences to Elicit Self-Directed Disgust

Increasing evidence indicates that disgust might compromise sexual functioning and can contribute to sexual problems. Although the stimuli and conditions that elicit disgust vary greatly across individuals, they cluster in three categories of disgust elicitors: Stimuli that are associated with an increased risk of the transmission of infectious diseases (pathogen disgust), stimuli that signal poor mating quality and may jeopardize reproductive success (sexual disgust), and behaviors that violate social norms (moral disgust). It has been argued that each of these categories of disgust may interfere with sexual responses. Thus far, research on the role of disgust in sexual contexts focused on external stimuli (e.g., sperm). Yet, recently it has been proposed that disgust can also become directed to features of the self. Such self-directed disgust may also apply to sexual contexts and contribute to sexual problems. As a first step to explore the relevance of self-disgust in sexual functioning, we tested if indeed particular sexual experiences have the ability to elicit self-disgust. Using a within subject design, participants (N = 124; all women) imagined themselves as well as others experiencing a series of sex-related scenarios, each relevant for one of the three categories of disgust, and subsequently rated their self-disgust. For all types of disgust, the scenarios evoked self-disgust, and the "self-perspective" elicited significantly more self-disgust than the "other-perspective." These findings support theoretical models pointing to the relevance of taking self-disgust into consideration as a factor that may compromise sexual functioning. Future research should test whether this also holds for men.

Effects of Ginger on Disgust, Sexual Arousal, and Sexual Engagement: A Placebo-Controlled Experiment

Sexual problems are common complaints across countries and cultures, and behavioral immune system theory suggests disgust plays an essential role in sexual functioning. The current study investigated 1) if disgust induced by sexual body fluids would reduce sexual arousal, reduce the likelihood of sexual engagement, and enhance disgust toward subsequent erotic stimuli, and 2) if the administration of ginger would affect these reactions. We administered either ginger or placebo pills to a sample of 247 participants (Mage = 21.59, SD = 2.52; 122 women) and asked them to complete either behavioral approach tasks with sexual body fluids or with neutral fluids. Next, participants viewed and responded to questions concerning erotic stimuli (nude and seminude pictures of opposite-sex models). As expected, the sexual body fluids tasks induced disgust. The elevated disgust induced by sexual body fluids tasks resulted in lower sexual arousal in women, whereas ginger consumption counteracted this inhibiting effect of disgust on sexual arousal. Disgust elicited by sexual body fluids also increased disgust toward the subsequent erotic stimuli. Ginger increased sexual arousal toward the erotic stimuli in both men and women who had completed the neutral fluids tasks. Findings provide further evidence of the role of disgust in sexual problems, and, importantly, that ginger may improve the sexual function of individuals via its sexual arousal-enhancing effect.

Dispositional factors in the explanation of symptoms of depression, anxiety, health anxiety and COVID-19 Phobia

Maladaptive personality, the motivational systems, and intolerance of uncertainty play important roles in the statistical explanation of depression and anxiety. Here, we notably examined for the first time whether symptoms of depression, anxiety, health anxiety, and fear of COVID-19 share similar associations (e.g., variance explained) with these important dispositional dimensions. For this cross-sectional study, data from 1001 participants recruited in Germany (50% women; mean age = 47.26) were collected. In separate models, we examined the cross-sectional associations of the symptoms of depression, anxiety, health anxiety, and fear of COVID-19 with the Personality Inventory for DSM Short Form Plus scales, the Behavioral Inhibition System / Flight-Fight-Freeze System / Behavioral Activation System scales, and Intolerance of Uncertainty scales. Relative weight analyses were used to determine the within-model importance of the different scales in the prediction of the symptoms. All in all, our study showed that maladaptive personality and intolerance of uncertainty dimensions are more important sets of predictors of the studied outcomes (with which depressive and anxious symptomatology feature very similar associations) than are the motivational system dimensions. Within predictor sets, the scales with the most important predictors were: Negative Affectivity, the Behavioral Inhibition System, and Burden due to Intolerance of Uncertainty. Our findings highlight the relevance of focusing behavioral targets of psychotherapy on these within-set traits and identify potential research priorities (maladaptive personality and intolerance of uncertainty) in relation to the symptoms of interest.

Contamination-Focussed Vignettes as an Analogue of Infectious Pandemics: An Experimental Validation using the State Disgust and Anxiety Responses in OCD

Despite infectious pandemics proving particularly detrimental to those with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), the investigation of analogous experimental paradigms is lacking. To address this gap, we conducted two studies employing vignettes that depicted contamination-related situations commonly experienced during a pandemic (e.g., Coughing into hands and failing to use hand sanitizer). We manipulated the salience of these vignettes across three levels: high contamination, low contamination, and a neutral control condition. Our examination of state anxiety and disgust responses in all participants revealed the successful manipulation of the vignettes' impact. Specifically, individuals with more severe OCD symptoms reported significantly higher levels of state disgust and anxiety for both high and low contamination vignettes, in contrast to the group with lower symptom severity. No significant differences were observed in the neutral vignette condition between the high- and low-scoring groups. Interestingly, for those with higher OCD symptoms, high salience contamination-focused vignettes resulted in similarly elevated state disgust and anxiety, regardless of whether the vignettes were situated in public (Study 1) or domestic (Study 2) settings. This suggests that the heightened sensitivity to contamination-related scenarios observed in individuals with OCD symptoms in the present study is not confined to a specific context. These findings support the use of contamination-focused vignettes as analogues for studying infectious pandemics and provide valuable insights into OCD models, interventions, and future research.

Examining reciprocal relations between disgust proneness and OCD symptoms: A four-wave longitudinal study

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Although disgust proneness has been implicated in the development of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), available studies have largely employed cross-sectional designs and the prospective and potentially reciprocal association between disgust proneness and OCD symptoms remains unclear. The present study employs cross lagged panel analysis to examine the prospective and reciprocal association between disgust proneness and OCD symptoms.

METHOD

A community sample of adults (N = 307) completed symptom measures of disgust proneness and OCD symptoms at four time points with 1 month intervals.

RESULTS

The results showed that the cross-lagged paths from disgust proneness to OCD symptoms were significant (average β = 0.07, p's < 0.001) when controlling for depression. However, the paths from total OCD symptoms to disgust proneness were not significant. In contrast, the cross-lagged paths from disgust proneness to washing OCD symptoms were not significant. However, the paths from washing OCD symptoms to disgust proneness were significant (average β = 0.05, p's < 0.01) when controlling for depression.

LIMITATIONS

The study is limited is limited by exclusive reliance on self-report in a nonclinical sample.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings offer preliminary evidence suggesting that disgust proneness may be a cause and consequence of OCD depending on the nature of the symptoms. Thus, the longitudinal relation between disgust proneness and OCD may be transactional where one influences the effect of the other.

Functional sophistication in human escape

Animals including humans must cope with immediate threat and make rapid decisions to survive. Without much leeway for cognitive or motor errors, this poses a formidable computational problem. Utilizing fully immersive virtual reality with 13 natural threats, we examined escape decisions in N = 59 humans. We show that escape goals are dynamically updated according to environmental changes. The decision whether and when to escape depends on time-to-impact, threat identity and predicted trajectory, and stable personal characteristics. Its implementation appears to integrate secondary goals such as behavioral affordances. Perturbance experiments show that the underlying decision algorithm exhibits planning properties and can integrate novel actions. In contrast, rapid information-seeking and foraging-suppression are only partly devaluation-sensitive. Instead of being instinctive or hardwired stimulus-response patterns, human escape decisions integrate multiple variables in a flexible computational architecture. Taken together, we provide steps toward a computational model of how the human brain rapidly solves survival challenges.

Disgust Processing and Potential Relationships with Behaviors in Autism

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

While there are reports of differences in emotion processing in autism, it is less understood whether the emotion of disgust, in particular, plays a significant role in these effects. Here, we review literature on potential disgust processing differences in autism and its possible associations with autistic traits.

RECENT FINDINGS

In autism, there is evidence for differences in physical disgust processing, pica behaviors, attention away from other's disgust facial expressions, and differences in neural activity related to disgust processing. In typically developing individuals, disgust processing is related to moral processing, but modulated by individual differences in interoception and alexithymia. Autistic individuals may experience atypical disgust, which may lead to difficulty avoiding contaminants and affect socio-emotional processing. In autism, such outcomes may lead to increased occurrences of illness, contribute to gastrointestinal issues, diminish vicarious learning of disgust expression and behaviors, and potentially contribute to differences in processes related to moral reasoning, though further research is needed.

Guilt, Disgust, and Not Just Right Experience Mediate the Effect of Demanding Parent Mode on Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder-like Tendencies, and Punitive Parent Mode Moderates This Mediation

The main objective of the present study was to examine, in a non-clinical population, the validity of a moderated mediation model for obsessive mental functioning. The research was conducted on a sample of 205 participants. Data were collected using the Psychiatric Screening and Diagnostic Questionnaire, Young's Modes Questionnaire-form SMI-2, Padua Inventory of Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms, Fear of Guilt Scale in OCD, Disgust Propensity and Sensitivity Scale-Revised, and Not Just Right Experiences Questionnaire-Revised. The results revealed that there is a significant positive, indirect effect of the Demanding Parent mode on OCD-like tendencies, which is completely mediated by fear of guilt, tendency and sensitivity to disgust, and Not Just Right Experiences severity. The Punitive Parent mode moderates only the indirect effect of the Demanding Parent mode mediated by fear of guilt, not the indirect effect mediated by disgust tendency and sensitivity and Not Just Right Experiences severity. Also, the indirect effect of the Demanding Parent mode on obsessive tendencies mediated by fear of guilt is significant only at medium and high values of the Punitive Parent mode, not at low values of the moderator. Our results provide a novel direction targeting the direct therapeutic intervention on demanding and punitive internal dialogue, complementing the classical CBT intervention protocol.

Can immorality be contracted? Appraisals of moral disgust and contamination fear

While extant research underlines the role of disgust in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with contamination fear, less research attention has been devoted to moral disgust. This study endeavored to examine the types of appraisals that are elicited by moral disgust in comparison to core disgust, and to examine their associations with both contact and mental contamination symptoms. In a within-participants design, 148 undergraduate students were exposed to core disgust, moral disgust, and anxiety control elicitors via vignettes, and provided appraisal ratings of sympathetic magic, thought-action fusion and mental contamination, as well as compulsive urges. Measures of both contact and mental contamination symptoms were administered. Mixed modeling analyses indicated that core disgust and moral disgust elicitors both provoked greater appraisals of sympathetic magic and compulsive urges than anxiety control elicitors. Further, moral disgust elicitors elicited greater thought-action fusion and mental contamination appraisals than all other elicitors. Overall, these effects were greater in those with higher contamination fear. This study demonstrates how a range of contagion beliefs are evoked by the presence of 'moral contaminants', and that such beliefs are positively associated with contamination concerns. These results shed light on moral disgust as an important target in the treatment of contamination fear.

COVID-19 vaccination and the behavioral immune system: The newcomer and the old friend get along in preventing infection

Despite its old evolutionary history and emotional relevance, the behavioral immune system is one of the less studied individual predictors of vaccine uptake. To fill the gap, we conducted a large online study (2072 participants) during the spring 2022 when the great majority of the Italian population had already received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Hierarchical binary logistic regression showed that, after controlling for the confounding effects of demographic and personality factors, there was a significant and positive association between pathogen disgust sensitivity and COVID-19 vaccine uptake (OR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.42-1.99). The likelihood of being vaccinated for a participant with the highest possible score on the PVD Germ Aversion scale was approximately 12 times higher than the likelihood for a participant with the lowest possible score. Public health messaging could leverage the activation of the behavioral immune system as an emotional driver of vaccine uptake.

Toward a reliable detection of arachnophobia: subjective, behavioral, and neurophysiological measures of fear response

Introduction

The administration of questionnaires presents an easy way of obtaining important knowledge about phobic patients. However, it is not well known how these subjective measurements correspond to the patient's objective condition. Our study aimed to compare scores on questionnaires and image evaluation to the objective measurements of the behavioral approach test (BAT) and the neurophysiological effect of spiders extracted from fMRI measurements. The objective was to explore how reliably subjective statements about spiders and physiological and behavioral parameters discriminate between phobics and non-phobics, and what are the best predictors of overall brain activation.

Methods

Based on a clinical interview, 165 subjects were assigned to either a "phobic" or low-fear "control" group. Finally, 30 arachnophobic and 32 healthy control subjects (with low fear of spiders) participated in this study. They completed several questionnaires (SPQ, SNAQ, DS-R) and underwent a behavioral approach test (BAT) with a live tarantula. Then, they were measured in fMRI while watching blocks of pictures including spiders and snakes. Finally, the respondents rated all the visual stimuli according to perceived fear. We proposed the Spider Fear Index (SFI) as a value characterizing the level of spider fear, computed based on the fMRI measurements. We then treated this variable as the "neurophysiological effect of spiders" and examined its contribution to the respondents' fear ratings of the stimuli seen during the fMRI using the redundancy analysis (RDA).

Results

The results for fear ranks revealed that the SFI, SNAQ, DS-R, and SPQ scores had a significant effect, while BAT and SPQ scores loaded in the same direction of the first multivariate axis. The SFI was strongly correlated with both SPQ and BAT scores in the pooled sample of arachnophobic and healthy control subjects.

Discussion

Both SPQ and BAT scores have a high informative value about the subject's fear of spiders and together with subjective emotional evaluation of picture stimuli can be reliable predictors of spider phobia. These parameters provide easy and non-expensive but reliable measurement wherever more expensive devices such as magnetic resonance are not available. However, SFI still reflects individual variability within the phobic group, identifying individuals with higher brain activation, which may relate to more severe phobic reactions or other sources of fMRI signal variability.

Attenuating experimentally acquired disgust: Comparing counterconditioning, exposure and unconditioned stimulus revaluation

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Disgust is implicated in the aetiology and maintenance of various psychopathologies such as anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Despite its prominent role in psychopathology, little is known about how to effectively attenuate disgust. The study examined strategies to modify an experimentally acquired disgust response in a sample of undergraduate students.

METHODS

A conditioning paradigm was used where participants (N = 175) first underwent acquisition of disgust via repeated presentations of a neutral picture (functioning as conditioned stimulus + [CS+]) paired with a disgusting picture (functioning as unconditioned stimulus [US]). Participants were then randomly assigned to either an exposure (repeated presentation of CS-only trials), counterconditioning (pairing CS+ with pleasant pictures), US revaluation (pairing disgusting US with pleasant pictures) or a control (filler task) condition. We hypothesised that counterconditioning would attenuate evaluative learned disgust to the greatest extent, relative to exposure and US revaluation. Participants' evaluations of the pictures were attained with a disgust-pleasantness visual analogue scale.

RESULTS

Exposure, counterconditioning and US revaluation reduced disgusting US expectancies. However, experimental and control conditions did not differ in terms of attenuating disgust towards CS+.

LIMITATIONS

Measures of psychopathology and implicit evaluations of disgust were not collected. Modest power might have limited significance of the results.

CONCLUSIONS

No statistical support for the effectiveness of disgust attenuation following exposure nor counterconditioning were found. Findings for US revaluation are inconclusive. Implications for future research are discussed.

Effectiveness of a projection-based augmented reality exposure system in treating cockroach phobia: study protocol of a randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND

Despite being the treatment of choice for phobic disorders, in vivo exposure treatment (IVET) presents some important limitations related mainly to low acceptance and high drop-out rates. Augmented reality (AR) technologies can help to overcome these limitations. Evidence supports the use of AR in exposure treatment for small animal phobia. A new projection-based AR exposure treatment system (P-ARET) that offers the possibility of projecting the animals in a natural and non-intrusive environment has been developed. There are no randomised controlled trials (RCTs) available that have tested the efficacy of this system in cockroach phobia. This paper aims to present the protocol of an RCT that evaluates the efficacy of the P-ARET, versus an IVET group and a waiting list control group (WL), in carrying out exposure treatment for cockroach phobia.

METHODS/DESIGN

Participants will be randomly allocated to one of three conditions: (1) P-ARET, (2) IVET and (3) WL. Both treatment conditions will follow the 'one-session treatment' guidelines. As a diagnostic measure, the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Health Disorders-Version 5 will be used. The Behavioral Avoidance Test will be used as the primary outcome measure. Secondary outcome measures will include an attentional biases task (measured using eye-tracking technology), the Fear of Cockroaches Questionnaire, Cockroach Phobia Beliefs Questionnaire, Fear and Avoidance Scales, Beck Depression Inventory second edition, Disgust Propensity and Sensitivity Scale-Revised-12, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Clinician Severity Scale, and Expectation and Satisfaction with the Treatment Scale. The evaluation protocol will include pretreatment and post-treatment evaluations and 1, 6 and 12 months of follow-ups. Intention-to-treat and per-protocol analyses will be performed.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

This study has been approved by the Ethics Committee of Universitat Jaume I (Castellón, Spain; 13 December 2019). The results of the presented RCT will be disseminated in presentations at international scientific meetings and peer-reviewed scientific journals.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

NCT04563390.

The role of disgust as an emotional barrier to colorectal cancer screening participation: a systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE

Worldwide colorectal cancer (CRC) screening rates are suboptimal. This systematic review and meta-analysis examine the role of disgust in CRC screening avoidance.

DESIGN

A systematic literature search was conducted. In all, 46 studies were included in the review. Among these, 16 studies were compared with a meta-analytical approach in order to 1) estimate the effect size of state disgust on screening intention and attendance; 2) examine whether methodological characteristics moderate the effect of state disgust on screening behaviour; 3) estimate the effect sizes of trait disgust and type of exam kit on state disgust.

RESULTS

In the reviewed studies, state disgust was often associated with CRC screening and especially with CRC screening avoidance. The meta-analysis confirmed low-to-moderate negative effects of state disgust on screening intention and attendance. Population sampling strategy was the only significant moderator of the effect of state disgust on screening attendance, i.e. studies that used convenience (versus random/representative) samples found a significantly lower effect size. Trait disgust and type of exam kit exerted a large and a moderate-to-large positive effect, respectively, on state disgust.

CONCLUSIONS

Disgust can boost CRC screening avoidance. Further studies and interventions must be designed to help patients in overcoming this emotional barrier.

Disgust sensitivity and behavioural inhibitory systems in binge eating disorder: associations with eating pathology

Disgust sensitivity refers to how unpleasant a disgusting experience is to an individual and is involved in the development of many psychiatric conditions. Given its link with food ingestion, there is an interest in understanding how an individual's susceptibility to disgust relates to dietary habits. One possible mechanism giving rise to this association is through the effects negative emotions have on high-order cognitive processes, but few studies take this model into account. The aim of this study was to characterize general disgust sensitivity in a clinical binge eating disorder (BED) population, and explore whether disgust sensitivity relates to inhibitory control and eating pathology. Following a case-controlled study design, our results show that: (1) disgust sensitivity and its subscales do not differ between BED and healthy controls, (2) higher disgust sensitivity in BED relates to greater behavioural inhibition, (3) inhibitory control reaction times relate to aspects of eating pathology, and (4) inhibitory control does not mediate relationships between disgust sensitivity and BMI among participants with BED. Understanding the role of disgust sensitivity in BED may allow us to understand how negative emotion systems maintain dysregulated eating behaviours with the potential to inform emotion-regulation treatment approaches. Level of evidence: Level III: Evidence obtained from well-designed cohort or case-control analytic studies.

How multiple threats to safety affects quality of life for picky eating adults: A new explanatory model

Picky eating describes a pattern of eating characterised by a narrow dietary range with rejection of both novel and familiar foods. Research has suggested that picky eating in adulthood is associated with several negative psychosocial outcomes including impaired quality of life. This research aimed to build and test a model explaining the relationship between picky eating and quality of life. 230 participants were recruited via online support forums for picky eating, and an undergraduate research participation scheme. Participants completed self-report measures of picky eating, sensory sensitivity, disgust, anxiety, fear of negative evaluation and eating related quality of life. Regression analysis indicated that picky eating, disgust sensitivity, anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation were all associated with impaired eating-related quality of life. A theoretical model was then devised which aimed to explain the interactions between these factors, and Path Analysis indicated that this model was a good fit for the data. This Safety in Picky Eating and Quality of life (SPEQ) model suggests that threat perception and the drive for safety underlies the relationship between picky eating and impaired quality of life. The SPEQ model provides a preliminary basis for understanding how picky eating impacts quality of life in adulthood.

An ethologically based view into human fear

The quality of the defensive response to a threat depends on the elements that trigger the fear response. The current classification system of phobias does not account for this. Here, we analyze the fear-eliciting elements and discern the different types of fears that originate from them. We propose Pain, Disgust, Vasovagal response, Visual-vestibular and postural interactions, Movement and Speed, Distance and Size, Low and mid-level visual features, Smell, and Territory and social status. We subdivide phobias according to the fear-eliciting elements most frequently triggered by them and their impact on behavior. We discuss the implications of a clinical conceptualization of phobias in humans by reconsidering the current nosology. This conceptualization will facilitate finding etiological factors in defensive behavior expression, fine-tuning exposure techniques, and challenging preconceived notions of preparedness. This approach to phobias leads to surprising discoveries and shows how specific responses bear little relation to the interpretation we might later give to them. Dividing fears into their potentially fear-eliciting elements can also help in applying the research principles formulated by the Research Domain Criteria initiative.

Disgust as a transdiagnostic index of mental illness: A narrative review of clinical populations

Disgust is a basic emotion of rejection, providing an ancestral defensive mechanism against illness. Based on research that documents altered experiences of disgust across several psychopathological conditions, we conducted a narrative review to address the hypothesis that altered disgust may serve as a transdiagnostic index of mental illness. Our synthesis of the literature from past decades suggests that, compared to healthy populations, patients with mental disorders exhibit abnormal processing of disgust in at least one of the analyzed dimensions. We also outline evidence of alterations in brain areas relevant to disgust processing, such as the insula and the interconnected limbic network. Overall, we provide preliminary support for the hypothesis that altered disgust processing may serve as a transdiagnostic index of mental illness.

Subjective disgust and facial electromyography responses towards unedited and morphed overweight self-pictures in women with varying levels of eating disorder symptomatology

Individuals with an eating disorder (ED) often report to be disgusted by their body. Body-related self-disgust could play an important role in the development and maintenance of EDs. We investigated if women with relatively high ED symptom scores indeed respond with disgust upon exposure to their body as indexed by facial electromyography (fEMG) of the m. levator labii superioris and self-report. Given that one's self-disgust may increase/decrease depending on the relative distance of the own body to the thin ideal, we also assessed women's disgust for overweight- and thin-morphs of their body. Female undergraduate students (N = 104) were photographed and presented with their (morphed) body pictures, next to disgust-relevant and overweight body control pictures. Higher levels of ED symptoms were associated with stronger self-reported disgust to unedited body-pictures and overweight-morphs. Disgust to thin-morphs was unrelated to ED symptoms. Participants generally showed heightened facial disgust towards overweight morphs, yet the strength of facial disgust was unrelated to ED symptoms. Thus, the findings provide evidence for the involvement of heightened body-related self-disgust in ED symptomatology, albeit only on the basis of self-report.

Pavlovian Disgust Conditioning and Generalization: Specificity and Associations With Individual Differences

Although studies have identified differences between fear and disgust conditioning, much less is known about the generalization of conditioned disgust. This is an important gap in the literature given that overgeneralization of conditioned disgust to neutral stimuli may have clinical implications. To address this knowledge gap, female participants (n = 80) completed a Pavlovian conditioning procedure in which one neutral food item (conditioned stimulus; CS+) was followed by disgusting videos of individuals vomiting (unconditioned stimulus; US) and another neutral food item (CS-) was not reinforced with the disgusting video. Following this acquisition phase, there was an extinction phase in which both CSs were presented unreinforced. Importantly, participants also evaluated generalization stimuli (GS+, GS-) that resembled, but were distinct from, the CS after each conditioning phase. As predicted, the CS+ was rated as significantly more disgusting and fear inducing than the CS- after acquisition and this pattern persisted after extinction. However, disgust ratings of the CS+ after acquisition were significantly larger than fear ratings. Participants also rated the GS+ as significantly more disgusting, but not fear inducing, than the GS- after acquisition. However, this effect was not observed after extinction. Disgust proneness did predict a greater increase in disgust and fear ratings of the CS+ relative to the CS- after acquisition and extinction. In contrast, trait anxiety predicted only higher fear ratings to the CS+ relative to the CS- after acquisition and extinction. Disgust proneness nor trait anxiety predicted the greater increase in disgust to the GS+ relative to the GS- after acquisition. These findings suggest that while conditioned disgust can generalize, individual difference variables that predict generalization remain unclear. The implications of these findings for disorders of disgust are discussed.

Facing Uncertainty: A Comparison of Hierarchical and Variable Exposure Interventions for Contamination Fear

Consistent with the inhibitory retrieval approach, one proposed modification to improve the effectiveness of exposure-based interventions is to maximize variability by not proceeding linearly up an exposure hierarchy. Accordingly, the present study compares hierarchical and variable exposure interventions for contamination-fearful individuals and examines the role of uncertainty to predict intervention outcomes. Participants (N=73) were randomly assigned to complete a single-session exposure intervention using a standard hierarchy or a variable exposure intervention in which hierarchy items were randomly presented. Participants completed a behavioral approach task (BAT) at baseline and two follow-up visits over a two-week period. Both interventions resulted in a significant decrease in anxiety and disgust as well as more BAT steps completed but did not differ from one another. However, individuals in the variable exposure condition reported less variability in uncertainty during exposure compared to those in the standard condition, d=.78. Furthermore, lower levels of variability in uncertainty predicted greater reductions in anxiety and disgust post-intervention. Consistent with previous studies, variable exposure did not convey additional benefit over standard, hierarchical exposure. The experience of uncertainty during exposure is an important yet understudied process that warrants additional investigation.

Bidirectional relationship between sexual arousal and (sex-related) disgust

Sexual stimuli provoke both sexual arousal and disgust, and the coaction between these emotions determines sexually behavioral outcomes. The current research includes two experiments to explore the bidirectional relationship between sexual arousal toward erotic stimuli and disgust induced by sexual body fluids. Study 1 presented 234 participants (117 women) with sexual body (vs. neutral) fluids followed by erotic stimuli, and Study 2 presented 235 participants (117 women) with erotic (vs. neutral) videos followed by sexual body fluids (and a non-sex-related stimulus). Study 1 showed that exposure to sexual body fluids reduced sexual arousal and the likelihood of sexual engagement toward erotic stimuli in participants with high sexual disgust sensitivity but increased sexual arousal and the likelihood of sexual engagement in participants with low sexual disgust sensitivity, while Study 2 suggested that men exposed to erotic (vs. neutral) stimuli reported lower disgust, stronger sexual arousal state, and higher willingness to interact with the sexual body fluids. There was no relationship between subjective feelings of sexual arousal and disgust in these experiments, while the balance of sexual arousal and disgust toward sexual body fluids and erotic stimuli had a positive association. Also, exposure to erotic stimuli had no effect on reactions to generally disgusting stimulus, but feelings of sexual arousal toward erotic stimuli were positively associated with disgust induced by generally disgusting fluid. These findings suggest that Behavior Immune System regulates disgust to establish a balance between benefit and cost related to sex as well as provide insight into the process underlying sexual dysfunctions.

Specificity Versus Generality: A Meta-Analytic Review Of The Association Between Trait Disgust Sensitivity And Moral Judgment

Disgust seems to play an important role in moral judgment. However, it is unclear whether the role of disgust in moral judgment is limited to certain kinds of moral domains (versus many) and/or certain types of disgust (versus many). To clarify these questions, we conducted a multilevel meta-analysis ( k = 512; N = 72,443) on relations between trait disgust sensitivity and moral judgment (disgust-immorality association). Main analyses revealed a significant overall mean disgust-immorality association ( r = .23). Additionally, moderator analyses revealed significant specificity in disgust type and moral domain (grounded in Moral Foundations Theory): effects were stronger for (a) sexual disgust compared to pathogen disgust, (b) sanctity moral judgments compared to other domains of moral judgments, and (c) sexual-sanctity associations compared to other disgust type-moral domain pairings.

The Development of Disgust and Its Relationship to Adolescent Psychosocial Functioning

Experiences of excessive disgust have been implicated in several psychopathologies. Research, however, has rarely examined disgust and its role in psychosocial functioning from a developmental standpoint. This study examines the relationship between disgust expression in early life and subsequent adolescent psychosocial functioning. Data from 165 children were collected as part of a longitudinal study. Disgust propensity in infancy and childhood was assessed using a facial expressivity task and food aversion task, respectively. Adolescent psychosocial functioning was measured through several self-report measures. Results suggest that there exists a degree of consistency in disgust expression within the first year of life, and that childhood disgust propensity may be related to impairment in early adolescent psychosocial functioning. These findings highlight the potential importance of identifying early disgust expression as a marker for later psychopathology.

Effects of sickness manipulation on disgust and pleasantness in interpersonal touch

The theory of the behavioral immune system (BIS) describes a set of behaviors that protect the individual from infectious diseases and that are motivated by disgust and the perceived vulnerability to disease. As interpersonal touch is one of the most common situations of potential transmission of infectious diseases in our everyday life, it seems likely that being touched by an apparently sick individual activates disgust. Our aim was to determine if risk of contamination from interpersonal touch alters the pleasantness of interpersonal touch and modulates facially expressed emotions. In total, 64 participants received interpersonal stroking by either a healthy or by sick-appearing experimenter. Half the strokes were performed at a slow velocity of 3 cm/s and half at a faster velocity of 30 cm/s, to modulate the degree of C-tactile fiber activation in the touch perceiver. While the experimental sickness manipulation did not influence the reported touch pleasantness, there was a tendency for a diminished expression of happiness in the slow stroking condition. In addition, the desire to clean the arm after stroking correlated positively to disgust sensitivity and to germ aversion, which is a subscale of the perceived vulnerability to disease. Contrary to previous studies, participants did not prefer the slow over the fast stroking velocity, irrespective of sickness induction. Our results lead us to assume that disgust in interpersonal touch depends especially on the touch receiver and we speculate that a rather conservative reactivity of the BIS allows for an adaptive behavioral balance in interpersonal relations. This balance may be needed to weight the risks of contamination against the benefits of interpersonal touch for social interaction.

Anxiety disorders, COVID-19 fear, and vaccine hesitancy

Development of the COVID-19 vaccines unfolded in real-time, lending a sense that they were developed more rapidly than other vaccines. Long-term data on their safety and effectiveness is not yet available. Thus, people may have greater uncertainty about the COVID-19 vaccines than other vaccines. We know that people high in anxiety have greater intolerance of uncertainty (IUS) and may have greater fears of adverse effects and concerns about the vaccine failing to prevent COVID-19. Ultimately, people with anxiety disorders may have greater COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy (VH). This study examined the degree of VH in people with (n = 96) and without (n = 52) anxiety disorders, whether anxiety status has an additive effect on factors known to predict hesitancy, and whether reasons for VH differed across groups. Groups did not differ in VH, but IUS was associated with greater hesitancy in those without anxiety but with less hesitancy in those with anxiety. Both groups' strongest predictors of hesitancy were influenza vaccine history, conspiracy beliefs, individualism, and trust. The top reasons for VH were concerns about adverse effects and efficacy, and the top reasons to get the vaccine were to protect others and self. Implications for reducing VH are discussed.

More than just fear: Development and psychometric evaluation of the Spider Distress Scale to assess spider fear and spider-related disgust

Spider fear is an excellent model to experimentally study processes in the maintenance and treatment of long-lasting fears. A valid, reliable, and practical tool to assess spider-related distress dimensionally, and to differentiate between spider-related fear and disgust in a time-sensitive manner, may help to better understand individual differences in these two emotions and to tailor treatments accordingly. We developed a concise self-report questionnaire, the Spider Distress Scale (SDS), that combines the strengths of established spider fear questionnaires and addresses their shortcomings. We explored (study 1 and 2) and confirmed (study 3) a two-factor structure of the SDS in samples from the general population (n = 370; n = 360; n = 423), recruited online via Prolific Academic from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. The fear and disgust factors of the SDS are highly internally consistent and the SDS has excellent test-retest reliability. We found good convergent and discriminant validity, based on self-report measures and spider behavioural approach tasks, and the SDS successfully differentiated between individuals with and without spider fear (study 4, n = 75). Our series of studies suggests that fear and disgust are functionally related, but that disgust towards spiders can be differentially assessed when focussing on unique elements of disgust-related information.

Emotion Processes Predicting Outbursts and Functional Impact in Misophonia

Misophonia involves a decreased tolerance to certain sounds and is associated with a range of emotions and emotion processes. In addition to the distress caused by misophonia, some individuals report having aggressive outbursts and significant impact on doing things they would like to be able to do. This study aimed to examine whether misophonia-specific cognitive and emotional processes were associated with misophonic outbursts and impact, and whether these relationships could be explained in part by emotion processes not specific to misophonia. A sample of 703 individuals, 315 of whom identified with having misophonia, completed measures of misophonia, depression and anxiety symptoms, anxiety and disgust sensitivity, interoception and beliefs about emotions. Exploratory correlation and regression analyses were used to build mediation models, which were tested using multiple linear regression. Externalising appraisals (blaming others for causing one’s reaction to sounds) were positively associated with misophonic outbursts, and this relationship was partially explained by anxiety symptoms and disgust sensitivity. Sense of emotional threat in misophonia predicted functional impact of misophonia, and this was partially explained by depression symptoms and negative beliefs about emotions. Anxiety sensitivity and interoception were not significant independent predictors of misophonic outbursts or functional impact. These results provide support for the relevance of emotion processes in misophonia and highlight the importance of using multi-dimensional measures of misophonia to improve our understanding of the condition.

Anti-Disgust Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Contamination-Based Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

Background: Disgust is a strong and persistent emotion that frequently occurs during exposure-based treatments for contamination-based obsessive compulsive disorder (C-OCD). This study aimed to examine the efficacy of augmenting cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with a novel type of anti-disgust cognitive intervention in reducing the severity of OCD, disgust propensity/sensitivity, and refusal rate of exposure and response prevention, while simultaneously increasing acceptance of disgust. Materials and Methods: Fifty-five individuals with C-OCD (mean age 28.1 years, SD = 3.52; 77% female) were randomly assigned to 15 weekly sessions of anti-disgust plus CBT (AD-CBT) or CBT alone. They were evaluated for outcomes four times (pretreatment, prior to exposure and response prevention (ERP) sessions, posttreatment, and three-month follow-up), and mixed-design ANOVAs were used to analyze the data. Results: The findings indicated that when compared to CBT alone, AD-CBT significantly reduced OCD severity, disgust propensity/sensitivity, and concurrently increased disgust acceptance (p < 0.001). Additionally, engaging in an anti-disgust cognitive intervention was associated with lower ERP refusal rate (4% vs. 16%). The superiority of AD-CBT over CBT persisted through the three-month follow-up period. Conclusions: The current study suggests that supplementing CBT for C-OCD with an anti-disgust cognitive intervention significantly increased acceptance of disgust and decreased the refusal rate of ERP, OCD severity, and disgust-related factors.

Emotional induced attentional blink in trauma-exposed veterans: associations with trauma specific and nonspecific symptoms

Although theoretical models suggest that an attentional bias for threat contributes to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, this bias has not been consistently observed in the literature. In the present study, trauma exposed veterans (N = 114) performed an emotional attentional blink task in which task-irrelevant combat-related, disgust, positive, or neutral distractor images appeared 200 ms, 400 ms, 600 ms, or 800 ms (i.e., lag 2, 4, 6, and 8, respectively) before the target. Relative to neutral distractors, impaired target detection was observed following combat distractors and disgust distractors, but not positive distractors. However, veterans were less accurate following disgust distractors compared to combat distractors. As predicted, combat distractors and disgust distractors were also associated with a stronger linear increase in trial accuracy reflecting task improvement with increasing lag before the target. However, the linear trend in trial accuracy for combat distractors and disgust distractors did not significantly differ from each other. Contrary to predictions, trauma specific (i.e., PTSD symptoms and diagnosis) and nonspecific processes (i.e., attentional control) were unrelated to trial accuracy. These data suggest that while initial attentional capture by cues of war is observed among trauma exposed veterans independent of individual differences in trauma specific and nonspecific symptoms, this attentional capture is less robust compared to attentional capture by disgust-eliciting stimuli. The implications of these findings for the theorized role of attentional biases for threat in the development and maintenance of PTSD are discussed.

Agreeableness and Its Consequences: A Quantitative Review of Meta-Analytic Findings

Agreeableness impacts people and real-world outcomes. In the most comprehensive quantitative review to date, we summarize results from 142 meta-analyses reporting effects for 275 variables, which represent N > 1.9 million participants from k > 3,900 studies. Arranging variables by their content and type, we use an organizational framework of 16 conceptual categories that presents a detailed account of Agreeableness’ external relations. Overall, the trait has effects in a desirable direction for 93% of variables (grand mean [Formula: see text]). We also review lower order trait evidence for 42 variables from 20 meta-analyses. Using these empirical findings, in tandem with existing theory, we synthesize eight general themes that describe Agreeableness’ characteristic functioning across variables: self-transcendence, contentment, relational investment, teamworking, work investment, lower results emphasis, social norm orientation, and social integration. We conclude by discussing potential boundary conditions of findings, contributions and limitations of our review, and future research directions.

Acceptance of Insect-Based Food Products in Western Societies: A Systematic Review

Consuming insects is a possible alternative to meat consumption that has few detrimental impacts on the environment and human health. Whether novel foods made from insects will become established in Western societies in the coming years depends largely on their acceptance by the respective populations. Numerous studies on the acceptance of insects as a novel food have already been conducted. In this systematic review, the main findings of quantitative, experimental, and tasting studies on the acceptance of insects as a novel food are summarized. The present paper is designed to serve as an orientation for practitioners in the food industry and provides information useful for the design of marketing strategies and target group-oriented product development. In addition, we highlight in which fields future studies could be conducted to further improve the understanding of the acceptance of insects as food in Western societies.

Your pain, my gain: The relationship between self-report and behavioral measures of everyday sadism and COVID-19 vaccination intention

Vaccination plays a crucial role in containing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, a significant fraction of the global population is reluctant to take a coronavirus vaccine. A burgeoning literature has considered mainly adaptive personality traits as antecedents of vaccine hesitancy (i.e., Big Five and HEXACO), while maladaptive personality traits (i.e., "Dark Tetrad" of personality) are often a comparatively neglected area. In this research, we examined the relationship between everyday sadism and intention to get vaccinated against COVID-19. We theorized that driven by antisocial tendencies and social indifference, individuals with higher sadism may be less willing to obtain a vaccine. Employing a bug-killing paradigm to capture everyday sadism, we tested this prediction in a Chinese sample of non-student adults (N = 188). Support for this proposition was found in the lab task, which demonstrates that sadism was associated with more vaccine refusal spanning the self-report and behavioral domains. In addition, we showed that the sadistic behavioral choices can be predicted with self-report measure of sadistic personality. These findings highlight the important role of maladaptive personality traits in predicting vaccination attitudes and intentions.

The association between local brain structure and disgust propensity

Research has discovered structural differences in the brains of people with different personality types. In the present voxel-based morphometry study we focused on the association between disgust propensity (DP: the temporally stable tendency to experience disgust across different situations) and grey matter volume (GMV) in regions of interest [insula, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), basal ganglia]. We collected structural brain scans from 498 healthy individuals (352 females, 146 males; mean age = 27 years). Regression analyses were performed to test the association between three domains of DP (core, animal-reminder, contamination) and GMV. We observed negative correlations between animal-reminder DP and the volume of the insula, and contamination DP and OFC volume. Animal-reminder DP correlated positively with GMV in the basal ganglia (putamen). This study identified weak correlations between local brain volume and disgust propensity. The association between DP and insula volume concerned the posterior insula and was in the opposite of the expected direction. The findings of this study are inconsistent with the concept of the anterior insula as a region that specifically mediates DP.

Food neophobia and the evaluation of novel foods in adults; the sensory, emotional, association (SEA) model of the decision to taste a novel food

Reluctance to eat new foods, known as food neophobia, is well researched in children but not adults. Two studies were carried out to understand the emotional, sensory, and cognitive factors associated with food neophobia in an adult sample, and to propose a preliminary explanation of the decision to taste a novel food named the SEA model (Sensory, Emotional, cognitive Association model). Participants were recruited through opportunity sampling of a university population in the Leicester region of the UK. Study one (n = 534) was a cross sectional study examining associations between self-report measures of food neophobia, emotional variables and sensory variables. In study two (n = 160), participants completed an online cognitive evaluation of 7 images of novel fruits and vegetables, rating perceived familiarity, categorisation as fruit or vegetable, cognitive associations based on appearance (what does the food look like), liking of any associated foods, and expected liking of the novel food. In study 1 it was found that tactile sensitivity and disgust sensitivity were the main sensory and emotional variables associated with food neophobia. In study 2, it was found that food neophobia and lower expected liking of novel foods were associated with disgust sensitivity, associating the novel foods with disliked foods, and lower perceived familiarity. The SEA model further proposes that underlying tendencies and automatic reactions to foods, combine with cognitive associations based on negative memories and negative beliefs about tasting new foods, to create expected disliking of a food and a decreased likelihood that it will be tried. Further work is needed to fully test the SEA model of the decision to taste a novel food, in particular to further examine how associations are formed.

Expectations of objective threats and aversive feelings in specific fears

Mistaken beliefs about danger posed by feared stimuli are considered a key factor causing and maintaining fears. Such beliefs are intriguing because many fearful people express them, but acknowledge they are untrue in reality. While previous research indicates fearful individuals may not wholly endorse their beliefs about objective threats (e.g., the spider will bite), expectations of negative subjective consequences (e.g., I will feel terrible) are also likely to be important. We investigated the extent to which participants' expectations of objective and subjective threats were sensitive to manipulations that encouraged them to consider whether their expectations were likely to happen in reality. Across five online experiments (N = 560, or 727 with more liberal inclusion criteria), such manipulations produced lower expectancy ratings for objective but not subjective threats (versus participants who gave ratings without the manipulation). Most participants reported that anticipation of negative feelings was more concerning than actual danger. Hence, numerous fear-relevant expectations about objective threat-considered central in understanding why people are irrationally afraid-respond to small cognitive manipulations. Additionally, expectations of negative subjective experiences during fear-provoking encounters appear to be more consistently endorsed, and feature prominently in fearful individuals' concerns about what will happen in a fear-relevant situation.

Self-disgust and disgust sensitivity are increased in anorexia nervosa inpatients, but only self-disgust mediates between comorbid and core psychopathology

OBJECTIVE

The possible role of abnormal disgust processing in the development and course of anorexia nervosa (AN) has been emphasized in theoretical models and research. However, disgust toward external stimuli and self-disgust have not yet been investigated together in a clinical sample of AN patients. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to measure these constructs and examine their role in shaping eating pathology in AN patients and healthy controls (HCs), considering comorbid depressive and anxiety psychopathology. The study also aimed at testing the possible mediational roles of both disgust types in the associations between comorbid psychopathology and eating disorders (EDs) characteristics.

METHOD

Altogether, 63 inpatients with AN and 57 HCs partook in the study. Participants completed the Eating Disorder Inventory-3, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory-II, Disgust Scale-Revised and Self-Disgust Scale.

RESULTS

AN patients manifested higher self-disgust and disgust sensitivity than HCs. In addition, self-disgust predicted the severity of EDs characteristics and mediated the links of depressive symptoms and trait anxiety with EDs characteristics in both groups.

DISCUSSION

Our findings imply the putative role of self-disgust in the development of EDs psychopathology in HCs and in its maintenance in AN patients.

The influence of movement on negative and positive emotional responses to animals

Two studies were conducted to explore whether the addition of animal movement would influence the intensity of emotional reactions towards that animal. Both studies compared self-reported emotional reactions with still images and videos for six animal categories (snakes, spiders, rodents, hoofed animals, animals with flippers, and turtles). In Study 1, participants reported fear and disgust to the animal stimuli, which were averaged into a single negative emotion rating. In Study 2, participants reported either fear and disgust or joy and affection to the animal stimuli, which were averaged into either a single negative or positive emotion rating. Upon combining the reported emotions from the two studies, movement was found to increase negative emotion reported to snakes and spiders and decrease negative emotion reported to rodents, hoofed animals, and animals with flippers. Results from Study 2 indicated that movement increased reported positive emotions to all six animal categories. Our findings suggest that animal movement is an important component of emotional reactions to animals.

Generalization of conditioned disgust and the attendant maladaptive avoidance: Validation of a novel paradigm and effects of trait disgust-proneness

Overgeneralization of conditioned fear to safe stimuli that resemble a previously-learned threat-cue is a well-studied correlate of clinical anxiety, yet whether conditioned disgust generalizes remains unknown, as does the extent to which such generalization is associated with disgust-related traits and maladaptive outcomes. The present study addresses this gap by adapting a validated fear-generalization paradigm to assess conditioned disgust and behavioral avoidance to a disgust-cue (CS+) paired with a disgusting video clip, and safe generalization stimuli parametrically varying in perceptual similarity to CS+. For comparison, levels of fear generalization were also assessed using the original fear-generalization paradigm. In both paradigms, costly and unnecessary avoidance to safe threat-cue approximations analogues maladaptive outcomes of generalization. In the disgust paradigm only, disgust-proneness was associated with elevated perceived risk to safe stimuli and increases in the extent to which such elevations were accompanied by maladaptive avoidance. Comparable levels of generalization, and positive associations between generalization and maladaptive avoidance, were found across disgust and fear paradigms. Results confirm that conditioned disgust is subject to generalization, implicate generalized disgust as a source of maladaptive avoidance particularly among those prone to disgust, and suggest a potential role for these processes in the etiology and maintenance of disgust-related disorders.

An exploration of the nomological network of trypophobia

BACKGROUND

Trypophobia is characterised by an aversion to or even revulsion for patterns of holes or visual stimuli featuring such patterns. Past research has shown that trypophobic stimuli trigger emotional and physiological reactions, but relatively little is known about the antecedents, prodromes, or simply covariates of trypophobia.

AIM

The goals of this study were (a) to draw the contours of the nomological network of trypophobia by assessing the associations of symptoms of trypophobia with several constructs that were deemed relevant from past research on anxiety disorders and specific phobias, (b) to compare such associations with those found for symptoms of spider phobia and blood and injection phobia (alternative dependent variables), and (c) to investigate the main effect of gender on symptoms of trypophobia and replicate the association of gender with symptoms of spider phobia and blood and injection phobia (higher scores for women).

METHODS

Participants (N = 1,134, 53% men) in this cross-sectional study completed an online questionnaire assessing the constructs of interest.

RESULTS

Most assessed constructs typically associated with anxiety disorders (neuroticism, conscientiousness, anxiety sensitivity, trait anxiety, disgust sensitivity, and disgust propensity) were also associated with trypophobia in the predicted direction. All of these constructs were also associated with spider phobia and blood and injection phobia. Behavioral inhibition was negatively associated with trypophobia and spider phobia-contrary to what was expected, but positively with blood and injection phobia. We found no gender difference in trypophobia, whereas women scored higher on spider phobia and blood and injection phobia.

DISCUSSION

Although some differences were observed, the nomological network of trypophobia was largely similar to that of spider phobia and blood and injection phobia. Further studies are needed to clarify similarities and dissimilarities between trypophobia and specific phobia.