Olatunji Bunmi O, Deacon Brett
Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA.
J Anxiety Disord. 2008;22(2):328-36. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2007.03.007. Epub 2007 Mar 19.
This study examined the specificity of disgust sensitivity in predicting fear and disgust responses to exposure to a spider. Participants high (n=22) and low (n=28) in spider fear completed self-report measures of disgust sensitivity, contamination fear, anxiety, and negative affect. They then participated in a behavioral avoidance task (BAT) in which they were briefly exposed to a realistic-looking, but fake, tarantula. Results revealed that disgust sensitivity was associated with fear and disgust responding to the BAT. The association between disgust sensitivity and disgust responding to the BAT remained significant after controlling for gender, spider fear group membership, contamination fear, anxiety, and negative affect. However, the association between disgust sensitivity and fear responding to the BAT was only marginally significant after controlling for the same variables. Contamination fear was also strongly related to fear and disgust responding to the BAT. However, this relationship was fully mediated by disgust sensitivity. These findings indicate that disgust sensitivity has a unique association with aversive responding to spiders. The implications of these findings for better understanding the complex role of fear and disgust as they related to disgust sensitivity in spider phobia are discussed.
本研究考察了厌恶敏感性在预测对蜘蛛暴露的恐惧和厌恶反应方面的特异性。蜘蛛恐惧程度高（n = 22）和低（n = 28）的参与者完成了厌恶敏感性、污染恐惧、焦虑和消极情绪的自我报告测量。然后，他们参与了一项行为回避任务（BAT），在该任务中，他们被短暂暴露于一只看起来逼真但却是假的狼蛛面前。结果显示，厌恶敏感性与对BAT的恐惧和厌恶反应相关。在控制了性别、蜘蛛恐惧分组、污染恐惧、焦虑和消极情绪后，厌恶敏感性与对BAT的厌恶反应之间的关联仍然显著。然而，在控制相同变量后，厌恶敏感性与对BAT的恐惧反应之间的关联仅勉强显著。污染恐惧也与对BAT的恐惧和厌恶反应密切相关。然而，这种关系完全由厌恶敏感性介导。这些发现表明，厌恶敏感性与对蜘蛛的厌恶反应存在独特关联。本文讨论了这些发现对于更好地理解恐惧和厌恶在蜘蛛恐惧症中与厌恶敏感性相关的复杂作用的意义。
