Disgust: the disease-avoidance emotion and its dysfunctions

Abstract

This review analyses the accumulating evidence from psychological, psychophysiological, neurobiological and cognitive studies suggesting that the disease-avoidance emotion of disgust is a predominant emotion experienced in a number of psychopathologies. Current evidence suggests that disgust is significantly related to small animal phobias (particularly spider phobia), blood -injection -injury phobia and obsessive -compulsive disorder contamination fears, and these are all disorders that have primary disgust elicitors as a significant component of their psychopathology. Disgust propensity and sensitivity are also significantly associated with measures of a number of other psychopathologies, including eating disorders, sexual dysfunctions, hypochondriasis, height phobia, claustrophobia, separation anxiety, agoraphobia and symptoms of schizophrenia-even though many of these psychopathologies do not share the disease-avoidance functionality that characterizes disgust. There is accumulating evidence that disgust does represent an important vulnerability factor for many of these psychopathologies, but when disgust-relevant psychopathologies do meet the criteria required for clinical diagnosis, they are characterized by significant levels of both disgust and fear/anxiety. Finally, it has been argued that disgust may also facilitate anxiety and distress across a broad range of psychopathologies through its involvement in more complex human emotions such as shame and guilt, and through its effect as a negative affect emotion generating threat-interpretation biases.

Differential disgust responding in people with cancer and implications for psychological wellbeing

“…Individuals differ in the extent to which they report finding relevant stimuli (e.g., faeces) disgusting and several self-report instruments have now been developed to assess interindividual propensity to disgust across a number of domains, such as contamination-based and animal-reminder disgust (see van Overveld et al, 2006). A heightened disgust proneness has been highlighted as a correlate of poorer psychological health by over two decades of work (Davey, 2011), and as a marker for mental health problems, including specific phobias (Matchett & Davey, 1991), contamination-based obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD; Woody & Tolin, 2002), and generalised anxiety disorder (Cisler et al, 2009). …”

Contenidos obsesivos, miedo a la enfermedad y asco

“…Tanto desde un punto de vista teórico (p.ej., Davey, 2011;McKay, 2006;Rachman, 2004) como empírico (p.ej., Olatunji, 2009;Tolin, Woods y Abramowitz, 2006), se ha sugerido que el TOC, o algunas formas del mismo, están asociadas con la emoción de asco en mayor medida que con el miedo y la ansiedad (Mancini, Gragnani y D'Olimpio, 2001). Esta asociación podría estar relacionada con la función adaptativa del asco como protector de la salud, al motivar la evitación de estímulos o situaciones potencialmente contagiosas o contaminantes (Sandín, Chorot, Santed, Valiente, y Olmedo, 2008b;Sandín et al, 2013a,b).…”

Proactive strategies to avoid infectious disease

“…As described above, disease avoidance may lead to new insights into stigmatization [19], racial vilification, mental health [21], interpersonal violence and conflict [25]. It may also improve our understanding of risky sexual choices and promiscuity [7] through identifying the apparent failures of disease avoidance in sexual decision-making [28].…”

“…Davey here [21] outlines the disorders in which contemporary thinking suggests that a dysfunctional disease avoidance system, especially disgust, play a role. These include obsessive-compulsive disorder (contamination forms), blood injury injection phobia and small animal phobias.…”