title: Disgust and disgust sensitivity in spider phobia: facial EMG in response to spider and oral disgust imagery.
abstract: Increasing evidence suggests that disgust and fear of contamination is involved in spider phobia. Yet, because the evidence exclusively relies on self-report data it can not be ruled out these findings are produced by mechanisms such as a negative attribution bias, or imprecise emotional labeling. Therefore, the present study sought to complement these previous studies by including physiological measures (i.e., facial EMG). Highly spider fearful (n = 24) and explicitly nonfearful women (n = 24) were exposed to general disgust-eliciting and spider relevant material using guided imagery (general disgust, spider) and video-exposure (general disgust only). Sustaining the idea that spider fearful individuals are characterized by a heightened disgust sensitivity, exposure to general (oral) disgust elicitors resulted in relatively strong disgust responses(self-report and EMG) in spider fearful women. In support of the idea that disgust is implicated in phobics' emotional responding, spider-relevant imagery elicited disgust responses (self-report and EMG) in addition to fear. Accentuating the importance of contamination ideation in spider phobia, participants' sensitivity to contagion (as indexed by the Magic Subscale of the Disgust Scale [Personality and Individual Differences 16 (1994) 701.]) was the single best predictor of elicited fear during spider imagery. Together. the available evidence converges to the conclusion that fear of contamination plays a pivotal role in the development of spider phobia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical, Clinical, & Experimental Psychology, Maastricht University, The Netherlands. p.dejong@dep.unimaas
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: de Jong
authors.forename: Madelon
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.forename: Inge
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Vanderhallen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001290:Attitude; D004576:Electromyography; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear; D006801:Humans; D019018:Imagery, Psychotherapy; D008297:Male; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D013112:Spiders; D014743:Videotape Recording