Implicit attention bias for disgust

Abstract

Two studies are presented here. The first is a masked presentation Stroop task. Participants were primed with vignettes that were disgust, threat, or neutral themed, and then completed a Stroop task with words in each of those categories. While there was no overall bias for disgust words, it was found that participants primed with a fear story showed enhanced bias for disgust words. It was also found that, overall, more disgust words entered participants’ awareness than other words. It is suggested that cognitive avoidance explains the bias, as participants responded faster to disgust words than to other words in the masked presentation. Study 2 examined the role of sex role on disgust sensitivity, and it was found that femininity in women significantly predicted disgust sensitivity, but femininity in men did not. Recommendations for future research are made.