Abstract
There have been few tests of whether exposure to naturalistic or experimental disease-threat inductions alter disgust sensitivity, although it has been hypothesized that this should occur as part of disgust’s disease avoidance function. In the current study, we asked Macquarie university students to complete measures of disgust sensitivity, perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD), hand hygiene behavior and impulsivity, during Australia’s Covid-19 pandemic self-quarantine (lockdown) period, in March/April 2020. These data were then compared to earlier Macquarie university, and other local, and overseas student cohorts, to determine if disgust sensitivity and the other measures, were different in the lockdown sample. The most consistent finding in the lockdown sample was of higher core disgust sensitivity (Cohen’s d = 0.4), with some evidence of greater germ aversion on the PVD, and an increase in hand and food-related hygiene, but with little change in impulsivity. The consistency with which greater core disgust sensitivity was observed, suggests exposure to a highly naturalistic disease threat is a plausible cause. Greater disgust sensitivity may have several functional benefits (e.g., hand and food-related hygiene) and may arise implicitly from the threat posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Highlights
The idea that disgust serves a disease avoidance function has been suggested by several authors and by a number of empirical findings (e.g., Curtis et al, 2004; Oaten et al, 2009)
Greater disgust sensitivity and greater perceived vulnerability to disease were both correlated with greater self-reported propensity for hygiene behaviors (HBI)
There was no difference for the perceived infectability subscale. These analyses provide some evidence of an increase in germ aversion in the MU20 sample, noting that this subscale is far more strongly correlated with core disgust sensitivity than perceived infectability
Summary
The idea that disgust serves a disease avoidance function has been suggested by several authors and by a number of empirical findings (e.g., Curtis et al, 2004; Oaten et al, 2009). In an examination of potential hypotheses to test the disease avoidance account of this emotion, Oaten et al (2009) describe in hypothesis 7 how vulnerability to disease should affect disgust, and in particular, how disease threat should result in greater disgust sensitivity. A number of laboratory induction studies have manipulated disease threat by exposing participants to pictures of sick people (e.g., Mortensen et al, 2010; Murray et al, 2013), people sneezing and coughing (Lee et al, 2010), descriptions of migrants who have come from countries believed to harbor more or less infectious disease (Faulkner et al, 2004), and by getting participants to describe a time when they felt especially vulnerable to disease (e.g., Murray and Schaller, 2012)
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