Examination Of Gender And Age Differences In Disgust Sensitivity

Disgust sensitivity (DS) is the strength of response an individual has to a disgust-eliciting stimulus, such as feces or a bloody injury. It is believed that DS evolved as a way to prevent illness and to protect an individual from potentially harmful substances. Previous research suggests a relationship between gender and DS, as women tend to be higher in DS than men. The purpose of this study was to replicate this finding using a larger, representative sample, and to investigate levels of DS across the lifespan. Additionally, we hypothesized that younger women would have higher levels of DS than older women, particularly for the contamination and core DS subscales. Participants in this study included US citizens who were online Amazon MTurk workers. There were 1,339 participants, 804 women and 535 men, ages 18 to 83 years old. Participants completed the Disgust Scale, which included the Core Disgust, Animal-Reminder, and Contamination subscales. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that gender more than age reliably predicted several different types of disgust sensitivity. In addition to several main effects, there was one interaction demonstrating that younger women were more likely to report higher levels the Contamination component of DS