Food disgust sensitivity predicts disease-preventing behaviour beyond the food domain in the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.

Jeanine Ammann,Meret Casagrande,Valerio Capraro

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0254648

Abstract

In the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, personal hygiene behaviours such as proper handwashing have gained significantly more attention and interpersonal contact is performed with great care. Disgust, as a disease-avoidance mechanism, can play an important role in the promotion of hygiene behaviour. We know from previous research that pathogen disgust can be a predictor of an individual's behaviour in the pandemic. Given that the pandemic greatly affects our food and eating behaviour, the current study aims to add to the existing evidence and to complement it by investigating the role of food-specific disgust in the pandemic. For that, we conducted an online survey in Germany in April 2020, while the pandemic was spreading in Europe. A total of 519 participants completed the survey and provided information about their COVID-19-related attitudes and behaviours and about their food disgust sensitivity. The results show that food disgust sensitivity is an important predictor for an individual's feelings, shopping behaviour, and disease-preventive behaviour related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that the success of political measures to fight the pandemic critically depends on the population to support and follow the proposed measures, a better understanding of the factors driving individual behaviour is key. Implications for pandemic management are discussed.

Highlights

In times of a global health crisis, quick mitigation is of crucial importance to weaken the impact the crisis has on people’s health and wealth
Given that disgust helps disease avoidance and has been linked to individuals’ intention to comply with behaviour recommendations in the context of COVID-19, the present study explored the role of food disgust sensitivity as predictor for attitudes and behaviours related to the current pandemic
On the basis that disgust has been associated with both behaviours related to the pandemic [32], general hygiene behaviour such as handwashing behaviour [29, 41], and food-specific hygiene behaviour in the home kitchen [27], the present paper investigated the role food disgust sensitivity plays in this major health crisis caused by COVID-19

Summary

Introduction

In times of a global health crisis, quick mitigation is of crucial importance to weaken the impact the crisis has on people’s health and wealth. Besides governmental action aiming to fight the crisis, public support is key for the success of these actions. Both demographic and psychological factors influence an individual’s compliance. The current paper investigates what role sociodemographic variables and the psychological factor food disgust, which can be seen as a disease-avoidance mechanism, play in the successful mitigation of a pandemic.

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