Pandemic elevates sensitivity to moral disgust but not pathogen disgust.
Sci Rep
; 13(1): 8206, 2023 05 22.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2326132
ABSTRACT
The behavioral immune system, with disgust as its motivational part, serves as the first line of defense in organisms' protection against pathogens. Laboratory studies indicate that disgust sensitivity adaptively adjusts to simulated environmental threat, but whether disgust levels similarly change in response to real-life threats, such as a pandemic, remains largely unknown. In a preregistered within-subject study, we tested whether the threat posed by the Covid-19 pandemic would lead to increased perceived disgust. The perception of threat was induced by testing during two phases of the Covid-19 pandemic (periods of high vs. low pathogen threat). We found heightened levels of moral disgust during a "wave" of the pandemic, but the effect was not observed in the domain of pathogen or sexual disgust. Moreover, the age of respondents and levels of trait anxiety were positively associated with pathogen and moral disgust, suggesting that variation in disgust sensitivity may be based chiefly on stable characteristics.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Disgust
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Sci Rep
Year:
2023
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S41598-023-35375-2
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