Abstract
Background and objectives: Disgust is a basic emotion that is thought to play a role in the development of animal phobias. This study was conducted to test whether experimentally induced disgust also results in higher levels of fear and interpretation bias.
Methods: Children aged 9-13 years (N = 94) were asked to inspect a set of specimen characteristic of a novel animal and requested to form themselves an impression of it based on those characteristics. Half of the children were given a set of disgust-eliciting products in relation to the animal, whereas the other half received a set of neutral materials.
Results: The main results indicated that children in the disgust specimen group exhibited an increase in fear towards the novel animal and a stronger inclination to interpret ambiguous situations involving this animal in a more negative way as compared to children in the neutral specimen group.
Conclusion: These findings confirm that disgust has a fear-promoting effect.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 765-769 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 2012 |
Keywords
- Disgust
- Fear
- Interpretation bias
- Children
- ANXIETY DISORDER
- SENSITIVITY
- PHOBIAS
- INFORMATION
- AVOIDANCE
- CHILDHOOD
- ANIMALS
- SYMPTOMS
- BELIEFS
- SPIDERS