Fear of catching COVID-19 heightened Americans' disgust sensitivity
In study, pandemic affected people's perceptions of what is gross

Date:
January 18, 2022
Source:
Ohio State University
Summary:
A new study suggests that disgust sensitivity -- how intensely a
person is repulsed by images, ideas or situations that could be
considered really gross or merely unpleasant -- was affected by the
pandemic, when concern about catching COVID increased sensitivity
to disgust.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Theory has it that disgust sensitivity -- how intensely a person is
repulsed by images, ideas or situations that could be considered terribly
gross or merely unpleasant -- is an evolutionary trait that initially
helped humans avoid eating rotten food that would have made them sick.


========================================================================== Research has since shown that disgust sensitivity, as measured on a
specific scale, can differ widely, with some individuals experiencing
disgust very strongly and others less so. But the explanation for those differences is subject to debate. Is high disgust sensitivity the result
of growing up with germophobes, related to neuroticism, or a way to detect
an unfit sexual partner? And is disgust stable across the lifespan, or
can it change? A new study suggests disgust sensitivity can and does
change -- and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, concern about getting sick
with a coronavirus infection was associated with an increase in disgust sensitivity.

Ohio State University researchers who had collected disgust sensitivity
data for a larger project before the coronavirus outbreak compared those measures to similar data collected during and after pandemic lockdowns.

"What hasn't been tested thoroughly is the extent to which your
environment actually shapes your disgust sensitivity. What happens when
you're in an environment that has a lot of pathogens?" said Shelby Boggs,
a doctoral student in psychology at The Ohio State University and first
author of the study.

"Disgust sensitivity was higher in studies we ran during the pandemic,
but particularly higher for people who felt concerned they would actually contract COVID-19." Boggs conducted the study with senior author Russell Fazio, professor of psychology at Ohio State, and former postdoctoral researcher Benjamin Ruisch, who is now at Leiden University.



==========================================================================
The research is published in the February 2022 issue of the journal
Personality and Individual Differences.

Despite disgust sensitivity's origins in dodging disease, research
over the years has linked high disgust sensitivity to avoidance of
"others" -- people of different races, political ideologies or genders,
for example. That school of thought leans toward considering disgust sensitivity an unchanging individual difference.

The Ohio State researchers focused on -- and found evidence to support
-- what is known as the "calibration hypothesis," which suggests that
disgust sensitivity is a more fluid measure that changes with time and circumstance.

This study involved nine surveys conducted between late 2018 and June
2020.

Before the pandemic, the team collected data from about 2,300 participants
in seven waves that included assessment of their disgust sensitivity. The pandemic's arrival in spring 2020 opened up an opportunity for a natural experiment to test the question of environmental effects on disgust sensitivity.

The researchers conducted two more surveys in late spring 2020, of
500 people each, questioning participants about a variety of their pandemic-related opinions and behaviors -- including how concerned they
were that they might contract COVID-19 -- and assessing their disgust sensitivity. The first was an entirely new group of participants, but the second was a subset of people who had participated in the pre-pandemic
surveys -- providing a rare longitudinal look at disgust sensitivity.



========================================================================== "Instead of comparing two groups of people pre- and post-pandemic,
you're comparing the same people and finding that to the extent that you perceive yourself at risk of contracting COVID, we get this heightened
disgust sensitivity," Fazio said. "That's powerful.

"The increase in disgust sensitivity really being limited to those people
who were concerned about contracting COVID-19 also eliminated a number of alternative explanations for the data." Part of the disgust sensitivity
scale asks participants to rate various experiences -- such as smelling
urine while walking in a tunnel under a railroad track or seeing someone
put ketchup on vanilla ice cream and eat it - - on a scale of 0 to 4,
where 4 is extremely disgusting.

The pre-pandemic average disgust sensitivity was 2.82, a figure that
increased to 3.26 during the pandemic. These results, based on the way
disgust sensitivity is measured, showed that people were not repelled
only by disease- related scenarios but also scenarios that had nothing
to do with disease transmission -- a sign that their entire disgust
sensitivity profile was heightened.

"One item on the rating asks how disgusted you would be if you were on
an elevator and someone next to you sneezed. Another asks whether you'd
be disgusted by eating chocolate shaped like dog doo -- which has nothing
to do with interacting and contracting a disease," Boggs said.

Fazio noted that the enhanced sensitivity was also evident when
participants were asked to rate various visual images related to disgust,
such as rotten meat with maggots in it. Those who were concerned about contracting the virus found the images more unappealing -- meaning the
effect extended beyond the items measured by the assessment scale.

Boggs predicted that once the most serious threats of the pandemic ease, disgust sensitivity in people concerned about getting sick would habituate
to pre-pandemic levels.

"Experiencing disgust all the time is not a fun state to be in. It's a
very vigilant emotion," she said. "My suspicion is if we recontacted
people a year or two out of pandemic mode, they probably would have
gone back down in disgust sensitivity levels. If the threat subsides,
then presumably your disgust sensitivity should subside as well."
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation.

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get wrong about diet and exercise. Claim_yours_now_>>> landing.newscientist.com/what-is-new-scientist-sd/ ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Ohio_State_University. Original
written by Emily Caldwell. Note: Content may be edited for style and
length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Shelby T. Boggs, Benjamin C. Ruisch, Russell H. Fazio. Concern about
salient pathogen threats increases sensitivity to
disgust. Personality and Individual Differences, 2022; 186: 111348
DOI: 10.1016/ j.paid.2021.111348 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220118125133.htm

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