Connection Between Disgust, Disorder Explored, Scholars Recommend Revision of Measurements

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Some obsessive-compulsive behavior, such as excessive handwashing or abnormal fear of contamination, appears to be motivated in large part by disgust, according to findings from a symposium of 10 researchers from different parts of the nation. They also determined that common measurements of disgust must be re-evaluated before psychologists can proceed with their research.

University of Arkansas graduate student Bunmi Olatunji co-chaired the symposium, called “Assessment, Specificity, and Information Processing of Disgust in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,” (OCD) alongside Dean McKay of Fordham University.

Olatunji was recently appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of Anxiety Disorders due to his work in this area. He is only the second graduate student to hold such a position; his predecessor was appointed while at Yale.

The symposium took place during the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy conference in New Orleans. Jonathan S. Abramowitz of the Mayo Clinic led the discussion.

“We wanted to extend our line of research to look at disgust and OCD,” Olatunji said.

Feelings of disgust serve to help protect people from dangers such as rotting food or blood that could be contaminated, by compelling them to avoid the danger. Most research into disgust deals with its role in certain fears.

Olatunji and his colleagues studied the role of disgust in symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder such as excessive hand washing or contamination fears.

“Our main finding was that disgust does appear to be highly associated with OCD,” Olatunji said.

They also evaluated current methods used to measure disgust.

“We discussed the importance of going back to basics in assessing what disgust is in this context,” he said. “We need to take a better look at our measures of disgust and come up with better ones before we can proceed with this line of research.”

Some research suggests there are four general categories of disgust-eliciting stimuli: core, animal nature, interpersonal and socio-moral disgust elicitors.

The two commonly used disgust sensitivity measures are the Disgust Scale and the Disgust Emotion Scale. Both were designed to assess disgust sensitivity in specific contexts. The measures only focus on two disgust elicitors - core and animal nature.

Core disgust is based on contamination concerns and includes disgust triggered by stimuli that may be offensive, such as rotting foods, waste products and small animals.

Animal nature disgust includes aversion towards stimuli that remind us of our animal origins, such as death, skin or body violations (injections and blood draws; mutilation), hygiene concerns and sexual acts deemed inappropriate.

The other two general categories of disgust elicitors - interpersonal and socio-moral - need to be added in order for researchers to obtain a more complete understanding of disgust.

The researchers at the symposium discussed the creation of a comprehensive, valid measure of disgust sensitivity that would include all four categories by focusing on their stimulus properties, or the properties that make them disgusting.

Participants in the symposium included Jeffrey M. Lohr, University of Arkansas; Suzanne A. Meunier, West Virginia University School of Medicine; Craig Sawchuk, University of Washington; Peter J. de Jong, University of Groningen; David Tolin, the Instituted of Living in Hartford, Conn.; Carol M. Woods, University of North Carolina; Jonathan S. Abramowitz, Mayo Clinic; Dean McKay, Fordham University; Dena Rabinowitz and Fugen Neziroglu, both of the Bio-Behavioral Institute.