Generalization of conditioned disgust and the attendant maladaptive avoidance: Validation of a novel paradigm and effects of trait disgust-proneness

Berg, Hannah; Hunt, C; Cooper, Samuel E.; Olatunji, Bunmi O.; Lissek, Shmuel

doi:10.1016/j.brat.2021.103966

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Like our interpretation above, this overgeneralization likely implicates an associative learning mechanism whereby threat evaluations to the unconditioned stimulus (COVID symptoms/experiences) are initially paired with infection signals such as the sight of sneezing or coughing. It is likely that such conditioned disgust/fear evaluations, like other threat responses that are learned, are inappropriately overgeneralized to neutral stimuli that do not signal infection risk—such that neutral stimuli by themselves elicit threat evaluations 14 , 42 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, aversive COVID symptoms are paired with environmental cues, such that those cues by themselves are evaluated as more negative and disgusting, thus representing evaluative conditioning of a disgust appraisal. Associative disgust learning can also be overgeneralized toward safe stimuli such that learned disgust evaluations/responses are inappropriately elicited towards neutral stimuli that were not paired with the unconditional stimulus (e.g., COVID symptoms) 14 . Indeed, the overgeneralization of behavioral immunity responses toward neutral stimuli may be common in humans because it promotes a “better safe than sorry” disease avoidance strategy 15 , 16 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The psychological costs of behavioral immunity following COVID-19 diagnosis

Spangler,

Li,

Revi

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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Prior COVID-19 infection may elevate activity of the behavioral immune system—the psychological mechanisms that foster avoidance of infection cues—to protect the individual from contracting the infection in the future. Such “adaptive behavioral immunity” may come with psychological costs, such as exacerbating the global pandemic’s disruption of social and emotional processes (i.e., pandemic disruption). To investigate that idea, we tested a mediational pathway linking prior COVID infection and pandemic disruption through behavioral immunity markers, assessed with subjective emotional ratings. This was tested in a sample of 734 Mechanical Turk workers who completed study procedures online during the global pandemic (September 2021–January 2022). Behavioral immunity markers were estimated with an affective image rating paradigm. Here, participants reported experienced disgust/fear and appraisals of sickness/harm risk to images varying in emotional content. Participants self-reported on their previous COVID-19 diagnosis history and level of pandemic disruption. The findings support the proposed mediational pathway and suggest that a prior COVID-19 infection is associated with broadly elevated threat emotionality, even to neutral stimuli that do not typically elicit threat emotions. This elevated threat emotionality was in turn related to disrupted socioemotional functioning within the pandemic context. These findings inform the psychological mechanisms that might predispose COVID survivors to mental health difficulties.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The psychological costs of behavioral immunity following COVID-19 diagnosis

Spangler,

Li,

Revi

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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“…Exaggerated avoidance of disgust stimuli can also be interpreted as generalized avoidance to stimuli resembling some characteristics of the disgust stimuli, but not necessarily predicting disgust-related outcomes (e.g., vomiting). We found only one study investigating the role of disgust-proneness in the generalization of costly disgust-related avoidance (Berg et al, 2021).…”

Section: Disgust-related Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A systematic review of the inter-individual differences in avoidance learning

Wong¹,

Aslanidou²,

Malbec³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Avoidance is typically adaptive given it prevents threat. However, avoidance becomes pathological when it is executed out of proportion of threat (i.e., excessive or insufficient avoidance), persists in the absence of threat, or excessively generalize to other innocuous situations. Although there has been an increase in research in these different processes of pathological avoidance, the role of inter-individual differences in these avoidance processes receives less research attention, despite of its theoretical and clinical importance. In this systematic review, we summarized the role of inter-individual traits that related to risk or resilient factors for anxiety-related disorders, trauma-and stressor-related disorders, obsessive-compulsive related disorders, pain related disorders, eating-related disorders, and affective disorders. A majority of the inter-individual differences had an apparent mixed or null effect on the different processes of avoidance. We discussed this lack of evidence of inter-individual differences on avoidance due to a lack of methodological and/or analytical consensus in the field, in addition to a lack of integration of recent findings into existing theories. Recommendations for future research are discussed, with a focus on examining the conditions or experimental parameters for certain inter-individual traits to manifest their effects on avoidance, identifying the nuances of inter-individual differences in avoidance, and a call for integrating recent preliminary findings into existing theories.

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