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Does 'Yuck' mean 'Eek'? Fear responses in children after a disgust manipulation
Peter Muris1, Jorg Huijding, Birgit Mayer
1Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. peter.muris@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Background And Objectives:
Disgust is a basic emotion that is thought to play a role in the development of animal phobias. This study was conducted to test whether experimentally induced disgust also results in higher levels of fear and interpretation bias.
Methods:
Children aged 9-13 years (N=94) were asked to inspect a set of specimen characteristic of a novel animal and requested to form themselves an impression of it based on those characteristics. Half of the children were given a set of disgust-eliciting products in relation to the animal, whereas the other half received a set of neutral materials.
Results:
The main results indicated that children in the disgust specimen group exhibited an increase in fear towards the novel animal and a stronger inclination to interpret ambiguous situations involving this animal in a more negative way as compared to children in the neutral specimen group.
Conclusion:
These findings confirm that disgust has a fear-promoting effect.
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