Publication Date

2025

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Wu, Kevin D.

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Psychology

Abstract

Disgust has been identified as a primary emotion potentially involved in the development and maintenance of contamination-related obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms. Research suggests that disgust comprises two distinct components: disgust propensity (DP; tendency or predisposition to experience disgust across situations) and disgust sensitivity (DS; the intensity of disgust experiences and their negative evaluation). Although both DP and DS have been linked to contamination-related OC symptoms, most studies have examined them separately or relied solely on self-report measures. The present study examined whether DP and DS uniquely predict both in-vivo disgust experiences and behavioral approach during a behavioral approach task (BAT). Undergraduate participants (N = 115) completed measures of DP and DS, OC symptoms, and a BAT involving a mixture of contaminants (dirt, dead insects, and animal hair). Results indicated that DP, but not DS, significantly predicted both in-vivo disgust experiences (β = .49, p < .001) and behavioral approach (β = -.39, p < .01) during the BAT, when controlling for agreeableness. Additionally, whereas neither DP nor DS showed significantly stronger zero-order correlations with contamination-related OC symptoms compared to other OC symptom dimensions, contamination-related OC symptoms emerged as the only significant predictor of behavioral approach (β = -.29, p < .01). The interaction between DP and DS did not significantly predict behavioral approach (β = -.02, p > .05). These findings suggest that although DP and DS showed statistically equivalent correlations across different OC symptom dimensions, DP may be particularly important in predicting actual behavioral responses to contamination-related stimuli.

Extent

122 pages

Language

en

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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