title: 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.
authors: School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK. m.siegal@sheffield.ac.uk
authors: Graham C L
authors: GC
authors: Davey
mesh_terms: D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000523:psychology*; D018562:Disease Transmission, Infectious / Q000517:prevention & control*; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D011599:Psychopathology