Disgust as a unique affective predictor of mental contamination following sexual trauma
Section snippets
Participants
Seventy-two adult women (Mage = 31.15, SD = 13.17) with a history of at least one instance of sexual victimization were recruited from the community (see Section 1.3) as part of a larger investigation focused on affective processes involved in responses to sexual trauma (e.g., Badour et al., 2013b). Participants were excluded from the study based on (1) evidence of limited mental competency and the inability to give informed, voluntary, written consent to participate; (2) current suicidal intent;
Results
Table 1 displays indices of internal consistency for measures included in the current study as well as zero-order correlations among continuous predictor, criterion, and demographic variables. Given an unacceptably low Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α = .24), for the STAI-T, this measure was excluded from further analyses. Mental contamination was significantly correlated with both indices of disgust (disgust propensity, peritraumatic self-focused disgust) and posttraumatic cognitive appraisals.
Discussion
The current study examined the unique association between disgust and mental contamination, a phenomenon involving internal sensations of dirtiness and urges to wash that can emerge and persist in the absence of contact with physical contaminants. This was examined among a sample of women with a history of sexual trauma, as sexual victimization has been identified in previous research as an experience particularly likely to result in mental contamination (Fairbrother and Rachman, 2004, Badour
Acknowledgments
This research was supported, in part, by a NIMH National Research Service Award (F31 MH092994-01) awarded to the first author. The expressed views do not necessarily represent those of NIMH, the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the United States government. Dean McKay receives royalties from: Sage Publications, Elsevier, Johns Hopkins Press, Springer Science + Business, American Psychological Association, and Springer Publications (for book royalties and as Editor of Journal of Cognitive
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