Does 'Yuck' mean 'Eek'? Fear responses in children after a disgust manipulation.

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.