Does aversion to insects affect insecticide use? An elusive answer calls for improved methods in biophobia research

Abstract

Insecticides are commonly used to control insects and other arthropods in homes (hereafter collectively referred to as ‘insects’). Although aversion to insects might encourage the use of insecticides, it is unclear whether such feelings truly influence the decision to use insecticides. We investigated the connection between feelings of disgust towards insects and the use of household insecticides. Our aim was to uncover the unexplored emotional drivers of insecticide use, in order to provide insights that might help develop new programmes to reduce exposure to household insecticides. We conducted an online survey (n = 2500) that focussed on insecticide use and disgust feelings towards six species commonly found in homes (cockroaches, ants, spiders, mosquitoes, flies and centipedes). Respondents rated their level of disgust towards these species and reported various beliefs and practices related to household insects and insect control. Approximately 70% of respondents expressed strong disgust towards these species (ratings of 6 or 7 on a scale of 1–7). More than half (53.3%) reported using aerosol insecticides in their homes in the 6 months prior to the survey. Path analyses highlighted several factors that influenced insecticide use, including infestation level, disgust intensity, lack of knowledge about arthropods and aversion to chemicals. However, the observed effect sizes were modest, particularly regarding the influence of disgust on insecticide use, which somewhat constrains our study's contribution to the understanding of the motivators driving household insecticide use. We explain how our findings potentially reflect a critical methodological limitation in the standard methods commonly used for measuring aversion in biophobia (fear of nature) research. This limitation originates from the fact that highly aversive animals often provoke extreme reactions from most participants, resulting in a very low data variation that hinders data analysis. We address this concern in the context of our findings and propose potential solutions that could pave the way for future research on how attitudes towards highly aversive animals affect individuals, society, and the relationships between people and nature. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

The Effect of Social Norms on Residential Insecticide Use

“…Could it be that decisions to use insecticides are not influenced by the person's affective attitudes toward the most common household pests? Since this possibility does not seem very likely, it may be that methodological issues were in play [33].…”

“…The second issue could lie in the distribution of the data on religious women's Aversion (Figure 3), which indicates an extreme response bias. With 18 out of 35 religious women having an average Aversion of 10, and another nine with an average Aversion of above nine, data variation may simply be too low for an informative data analysis [33].…”

“…The issue of extreme responding in studies asking participants to self-report their affective attitudes toward highly aversive invertebrates (e.g., spiders, cockroaches) is a standing problem in biophobia research [33]. Currently, it limits the ability to gain insight into the causes and effects of extreme biophobia, and therefore the contribution of the Aversion rating used in this study to understanding the reasons for the elevated Insecticide Use among religious Jews is limited.…”

“…The decision to interview only women was derived from the need to ask participants to rate their affective attitudes toward pests, in light of research indicating that men tend to report dishonestly on emotions like fear and disgust, which are often stereotypically associated with weakness or femininity [29][30][31]. Interviewing only women on household insecticide use is unlikely to introduce a significant selection bias, as women are substantially involved in the purchase and application of insecticides in their households [32,33].…”