ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

Sec. Cognitive Neuroscience

Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1607506

This article is part of the Research TopicThe brain and social interactions: from paradigms of social emotion recognition to hyperscanningView all articles

The development and initial findings of a DISGUST scale

Provisionally accepted
Tobias HerzlTobias Herzl1Jürgen FuchshuberJürgen Fuchshuber2Sarah StraßnigSarah Straßnig1Afrodita LatifiAfrodita Latifi3Peter WallaPeter Walla4Andreas FinkAndreas Fink1Human-Friedrich UnterrainerHuman-Friedrich Unterrainer4*
  • 1University of Graz, Graz, Styria, Austria
  • 2Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  • 3Medical University of Graz, Graz, Styria, Austria
  • 4Sigmund Freud University Vienna, Vienna, Vienna, Austria

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Select one of your emails

You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:

Notify me on publication

Please enter your email address:

If you already have an account, please login

You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here

Background: Disgust is a fundamental emotion linked to survival, but its classification as a primary emotion remains debated. This study develops and validates a questionnaire assessing disgust as a primary emotion and examines its relationship with personality traits and psychopathology.: A total of 482 German speaking participants completed an online survey. The sample was split for a principal component analysis (N = 250) and confirmatory (N = 232) factor analyses. Correlations and hierarchical regressions tested associations with personality traits and psychiatric symptoms. Results: Initial item reduction via PCA resulted in two alternative unidimensional models with eight and five Items. CFA confirmed excellent model fit for both versions

Keywords: disgust, Primary emotions, Personality, Psychopathology, scale development, Affective Neuroscience

Received: 07 Apr 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Herzl, Fuchshuber, Straßnig, Latifi, Walla, Fink and Unterrainer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Human-Friedrich Unterrainer, Sigmund Freud University Vienna, Vienna, 1030, Vienna, Austria

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material