Individual differences in disgust sensitivity: Comparisons and evaluationsof paper-and-pencil versus behavioral measures

Sixty-eight undergraduate students experienced 32 hands-on tasks designed t o provide a behavioral validation for the paper-and-pencil Disgust Scale, w hich the students had completed 2 months before. Tasks assessed participant -determined degree of exposure (looking at, picking up, touching, and in so me cases eating) to objects such as a cockroach, cremated ashes, and a fres hly killed pig's head and to disgusting video clips (seconds watching). The se tasks elicited strong negative affect in a way that was ethical and not very disturbing to participants; they may be useful for future laboratory s tudy of emotion. Participants also experienced nondisgusting control tasks, such as imitating a chicken or holding one's hand in ice-water. Analysis o f task intercorrelations indicated four factors: food-related disgust, body -violation-and-death-related disgust, compliance motivation, and embarrassa bility. Only the mio disgust factors correlated significantly with the pape r-and-pencil Disgust Scale; a combination of the two correlated.58 with Dis gust Scale scores obtained months before the laboratory assessment and corr elated.71 with scores obtained immediately after this assessment. Most gene rally, these results are a reminder that there is no gold standard for pers onality assessment. As with paper-and-pencil measures, behavioral measures require getting beyond face validity to assess threats to validity from fac tors such as embarrassment and compliance motivation. (C) 1999 Academic Pre ss.