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The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Disgust Sensitivity
There have been few tests of whether exposure to naturalistic or experimental disease-threat inductions alter disgust sensitivity, although it has been hypothesized that this should occur as part of disgust’s disease avoidance function. In the current study, we asked Macquarie university students to...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7854913/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33551913 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.600761 |
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author | Stevenson, Richard J. Saluja, Supreet Case, Trevor I. |
author_facet | Stevenson, Richard J. Saluja, Supreet Case, Trevor I. |
author_sort | Stevenson, Richard J. |
collection | PubMed |
description | There have been few tests of whether exposure to naturalistic or experimental disease-threat inductions alter disgust sensitivity, although it has been hypothesized that this should occur as part of disgust’s disease avoidance function. In the current study, we asked Macquarie university students to complete measures of disgust sensitivity, perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD), hand hygiene behavior and impulsivity, during Australia’s Covid-19 pandemic self-quarantine (lockdown) period, in March/April 2020. These data were then compared to earlier Macquarie university, and other local, and overseas student cohorts, to determine if disgust sensitivity and the other measures, were different in the lockdown sample. The most consistent finding in the lockdown sample was of higher core disgust sensitivity (Cohen’s d = 0.4), with some evidence of greater germ aversion on the PVD, and an increase in hand and food-related hygiene, but with little change in impulsivity. The consistency with which greater core disgust sensitivity was observed, suggests exposure to a highly naturalistic disease threat is a plausible cause. Greater disgust sensitivity may have several functional benefits (e.g., hand and food-related hygiene) and may arise implicitly from the threat posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7854913 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-78549132021-02-04 The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Disgust Sensitivity Stevenson, Richard J. Saluja, Supreet Case, Trevor I. Front Psychol Psychology There have been few tests of whether exposure to naturalistic or experimental disease-threat inductions alter disgust sensitivity, although it has been hypothesized that this should occur as part of disgust’s disease avoidance function. In the current study, we asked Macquarie university students to complete measures of disgust sensitivity, perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD), hand hygiene behavior and impulsivity, during Australia’s Covid-19 pandemic self-quarantine (lockdown) period, in March/April 2020. These data were then compared to earlier Macquarie university, and other local, and overseas student cohorts, to determine if disgust sensitivity and the other measures, were different in the lockdown sample. The most consistent finding in the lockdown sample was of higher core disgust sensitivity (Cohen’s d = 0.4), with some evidence of greater germ aversion on the PVD, and an increase in hand and food-related hygiene, but with little change in impulsivity. The consistency with which greater core disgust sensitivity was observed, suggests exposure to a highly naturalistic disease threat is a plausible cause. Greater disgust sensitivity may have several functional benefits (e.g., hand and food-related hygiene) and may arise implicitly from the threat posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-01-20 /pmc/articles/PMC7854913/ /pubmed/33551913 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.600761 Text en Copyright © 2021 Stevenson, Saluja and Case. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Stevenson, Richard J. Saluja, Supreet Case, Trevor I. The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Disgust Sensitivity |
title | The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Disgust Sensitivity |
title_full | The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Disgust Sensitivity |
title_fullStr | The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Disgust Sensitivity |
title_full_unstemmed | The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Disgust Sensitivity |
title_short | The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Disgust Sensitivity |
title_sort | impact of the covid-19 pandemic on disgust sensitivity |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7854913/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33551913 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.600761 |
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