The Effect of Context on Disgust Habituation: Implications for the Treatment of Blood-Injection-Injury Phobia

Abstract

Growing evidence has implicated disgust in the etiology and maintenance of some anxiety-related disorders, particularly blood-injection-injury (BII) phobia. However, much remains unknown about the role of disgust in exposure-based treatment of these anxious conditions. The present investigation examines the effect of varying the context in which disgust is presented during repeated exposure on habituation among nonclinical (Study 1) and analogue BII phobic (Study 2) samples. After repeated video presentations of disgust stimuli (vomiting), findings from Study 1 revealed no group differences between a single context and a multiple context group from pre to post repeated exposure or during the subsequent presentation of a novel disgust context. However, individuals in the multiple context condition showed reductions in anxiety and disgust responding to the novel disgust context at a one-week follow-up. Results from Study 2 revealed no differences in responding to post- repeated disgust exposure blood draw videos or a novel blood draw video among BII phobics in the single disgust context compared to those in the multiple disgust context condition. Assessment of physiological responding did show some beneficial effects of the multiple disgust context manipulation on arousal in both studies. Implications of these findings for better understanding the role of disgust in the treatment of anxiety-related disorders are discussed.