TY - JOUR
T1 - Unique affective and cognitive processes in contamination appraisals
T2 - Implications for contamination fear
AU - Cisler, Josh M.
AU - Adams, Thomas G.
AU - Brady, Robert E.
AU - Bridges, Ana J.
AU - Lohr, Jeffrey M.
AU - Olatunji, Bunmi O.
PY - 2011/1
Y1 - 2011/1
N2 - A large body of evidence suggests an important role of disgust in contamination fear (CF). A separate line of research implicates various cognitive mechanisms in contamination fear, including obsessive beliefs, memory biases, and delayed attentional disengagement from threat. This study is an initial attempt to integrate these two lines of research and examines whether disgust and delayed attention disengagement from threat explain unique or overlapping processes within CF. Non-clinical undergraduate students (N= 108) completed a spatial cueing task, which provided measures of delayed disengagement from frightening and disgusting cues, and a self-report measure of disgust propensity (DP). Participants also completed a chain of contagion task, in which they provided contamination appraisals of an object as a function of degrees of removal from an initial contaminant. Results demonstrated that DP predicted greater initial contamination appraisals, but a sharper decline in estimations across further degrees of removal from the contaminant. Delayed disengagement from disgust cues uniquely predicted sustained elevations in contamination estimations across further degrees of removal from the contaminant. These results suggest that DP and delayed disengagement from disgust cues explain unique and complimentary processes in contamination appraisals, which suggests the utility of incorporating the disparate affective and cognitive lines of research on CF.
AB - A large body of evidence suggests an important role of disgust in contamination fear (CF). A separate line of research implicates various cognitive mechanisms in contamination fear, including obsessive beliefs, memory biases, and delayed attentional disengagement from threat. This study is an initial attempt to integrate these two lines of research and examines whether disgust and delayed attention disengagement from threat explain unique or overlapping processes within CF. Non-clinical undergraduate students (N= 108) completed a spatial cueing task, which provided measures of delayed disengagement from frightening and disgusting cues, and a self-report measure of disgust propensity (DP). Participants also completed a chain of contagion task, in which they provided contamination appraisals of an object as a function of degrees of removal from an initial contaminant. Results demonstrated that DP predicted greater initial contamination appraisals, but a sharper decline in estimations across further degrees of removal from the contaminant. Delayed disengagement from disgust cues uniquely predicted sustained elevations in contamination estimations across further degrees of removal from the contaminant. These results suggest that DP and delayed disengagement from disgust cues explain unique and complimentary processes in contamination appraisals, which suggests the utility of incorporating the disparate affective and cognitive lines of research on CF.
KW - Attention
KW - Contamination fear
KW - Disgust
KW - Obsessive-compulsive disorder
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=78650250737&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=78650250737&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.07.002
DO - 10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.07.002
M3 - Article
C2 - 20691567
AN - SCOPUS:78650250737
SN - 0887-6185
VL - 25
SP - 28
EP - 35
JO - Journal of Anxiety Disorders
JF - Journal of Anxiety Disorders
IS - 1
ER -