Is trypophobia more related to disgust than to fear? Assessing the disease avoidance and ancestral fear hypotheses

Abstract

We examined fear and disgust responses in trypophobia to distinguish between two hypotheses concerning the origin of this phenomenon. According to the hypothesis that trypophobia stems from an ancestral fear of dangerous animals, fear predominates over disgust, whereas the opposite is true according to the disease aversion hypothesis. Currently, the question of which of the two plays a more significant role in trypophobia remains unclear. Adults had to rate on Likert-type scales their level of disgust and fear when presented with photographs of frightening or disgusting stimuli, trypophobia-inducing stimuli, i.e., clusters of holes, or neutral stimuli. They also had to rate the difficulty of viewing these images. Higher levels of disgust than fear were found for the trypophobic images in both the overall sample and in the participants reporting the highest levels of discomfort when viewing them. Trypophobic images had a special status for these latter participants, as they were rated more disgusting than non-trypophobic disgusting images and more frightening than non-trypophobic frightening images. Although disgust is the dominant emotion in trypophobia, fear is also not negligible.

Keywords: Trypophobia; behavioural immune system; disgust; fear.