Pathogen disgust sensitivity: More sensitive cue detection or stronger cue avoidance?

Florian van Leeuwen*, Bastian Jaeger

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

73 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Humans differ in their tendency to experience disgust and avoid contact with potential sources of pathogens. Pathogen disgust sensitivity has been used to explain a wide range of social phenomena, such as prejudice, conformity, and trust. Yet, its exact role in the motivational system that regulates avoidance of pathogens, the so-called behavioral immune system, remains unclear. Here, we test how individual differences in pathogen disgust sensitivity relates to the information processing structure underlying pathogen avoidance. Participants (n = 998) rated the perceived health of individuals with or without facial blemishes and indicated how comfortable they would feel about having physical contact with them. Participants with high disgust sensitivity viewed facial blemishes as more indicative of poor health. Moreover, for participants with high disgust sensitivity, perceived health was a stronger determinant of comfort with physical contact. These findings suggest that increased pathogen disgust sensitivity captures tendencies to more readily interpret stimuli as a pathogen threat and be more strongly guided by estimated infection risk when deciding who should be approached or avoided. This supports the notion that pathogen disgust sensitivity is a summary of investment in pathogen avoidance, rather than just an increased sensitivity to pathogen cues.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)394-403
Number of pages10
JournalMotivation and Emotion
Volume46
Issue number3
Early online date6 Apr 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
For help with data collection, we thank Rick Oortwijn, Falco Pulles, Alvaro Evers, Bram van Gulick, Estela Perez, Tessa van Avendonck, Yusi Li, Maria Zhuravleva, Anastasia Grigoreva, and Anastasiia Burakova.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

Funding

For help with data collection, we thank Rick Oortwijn, Falco Pulles, Alvaro Evers, Bram van Gulick, Estela Perez, Tessa van Avendonck, Yusi Li, Maria Zhuravleva, Anastasia Grigoreva, and Anastasiia Burakova.

Keywords

  • Approach-avoidance motivations
  • Behavioral immune system
  • Disgust
  • Disgust sensitivity
  • Individual differences

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Pathogen disgust sensitivity: More sensitive cue detection or stronger cue avoidance?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this