Disgust sensitivity and contamination fears in spider and blood-injection-injury phobias

Disgust has been implicated in the onset and maintenance of blood-injection -injury (BII) and animal phobias. Research suggests that people with these phobias are characterized by an elevated sensitivity to disgust-evoking sti muli separate from their phobic concerns. The disgust response has been des cribed as the rejection of potential contaminants. Disgust-motivated avoida nce of phobic stimuli may therefore be related to fears of contamination or infection. The present study compared BII phobics, spider phobics and nonp hobics on two measures of disgust sensitivity and two measures of contamina tion fears. Positive correlations were found between disgust sensitivity an d contamination fear. Specific phobics scored higher than nonphobics on all scales and BII phobics scored higher than spider phobics on contamination fear measures. Furthermore, the contamination fear scales were correlated w ith the blood phobia measure, but not correlated with the spider phobia mea sure. The results suggest that while both phobias are characterized by elev ated disgust sensitivity, contamination fear is more prominent in BII than spider phobia. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.