Attentional biases associated with individual differences in disgust sensitivity: An eye tracking study

Abstract

Disgust sensitivity is related to a wide variety of psychological constructs (e.g., moral decision-making, political ideology, person perception) and psychopathological disorders (e.g., anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders). In the present article, we aim to provide more insight into the basic information processing strategies associated with individual differences in disgust sensitivity by examining three attentional biases (vigilance, maintenance, and avoidance) for disgust stimuli. Using eye tracking methodology, two studies (N = 135 & N = 149) found that the processing of disgust stimuli by disgust sensitive individuals is characterized exclusively by avoidance. This finding is in line with the idea that more disgust sensitive individuals have a more sensitive pathogen threat alert system. Interestingly, disgust sensitive individuals showed a similar attentional avoidance bias for other negative stimuli.