Evaluative conditioning of fear and disgust in blood-injection-injury phobia: Specificity and impact of individual differences in disgust sensitivity

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Abstract

The present study examines whether the repeated pairing of neutral facial expressions with phobic-relevant stimuli differentially influences evaluative ratings of fear and disgust between analogue blood-injection-injury (BII) phobic (n = 40) and non-phobic (n = 40) participants. Consistent with prior research, BII phobics reported greater disgust sensitivity than non-phobic participants even after controlling for between group differences in anxiety symptoms. Results from the evaluative conditioning experiment indicated that pre- to posttest increases in fear ratings were only marginally greater for phobic compared to non-phobic participants. However, increases in disgust from pre- to posttest were greater for phobic compared to non-phobic participants and greater for neutral expressions that were paired with threat-relevant stimuli compared to stimuli not paired with threat-relevant stimuli. Subsequent analysis also indicated that pre- to posttest increases in disgust ratings of neutral expressions that were paired with threat-relevant stimuli was moderated by disgust sensitivity levels among phobic and non-phobic participants. Heightened fear and disgust ratings were subsequently reduced by an extinction procedure. Implications of present findings in understanding the role of fear and disgust in BII phobia are discussed.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were selected from undergraduate psychology classes based on their scores on the Injection Phobia Scale-Anxiety (IPS-Anx; Öst, Hellstrom, & Kaver, 1992) and participated in exchange for research credit. Based on their questionnaire score, participants were classified into two mutually exclusive groups.

The BII phobia group1

Participant characteristics

Scores for BII phobics on the IPS-Anx ranged from 36.00 to 66.00 (M = 45.50, S.D. = 8.23) and those for the non-phobics ranged from .00 to 19.00 (M = 4.87, S.D. = 3.78). Age and gender distributions did not significantly differ between the two groups (p > .05).

Validation of phobic group membership

A logistical regression analysis was performed using the Injections, Sharp Objects, Blood, Mutilation, and Examinations subscales of the MFS as predictor of phobic group status (BII phobic or non-phobic). A test of the full model with all five

Discussion

Fear and disgust are discrete emotional states characterized by well-defined physiological, behavioral, and subjective dimensions (Ekman, 1992). However, both emotions have been implicated in the etiology and maintenance of BII phobia (e.g., Kleinknecht, Thorndike, & Walls, 1996). This line of research has also shown that BII phobics tend to respond with a greater degree of disgust than fear when exposed to threat-relevant stimuli (Tolin, Sawchuk, & Lee, 1999). It has been proposed that disgust

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