Citation

Comtesse H, Stemmler G. Biol. Psychol. 2016; 123: 166-176.

Affiliation

University of Marburg, Germany.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.12.002

PMID

27939702

Abstract

Both fear and disgust facilitate avoidance of threat. From a functional view, however, cardiovascular responses to fear and disgust should differ as they prepare for appropriate behavior to protect from injury and infection, respectively. Therefore, we examined the cardiovascular responses to fear and contamination-related disgust in comparison to an emotionally neutral state induced with auditory scripts and film clips in female participants. Ten emotion and motivation self-reports and 10 cardiovascular response factors derived from 23 cardiovascular variables served as dependent variables. Self-reports confirmed the specific induction of fear and disgust. In addition, fear and disgust differed in their cardiovascular response patterning. For fear, we observed specific increases in factors indicating vasoconstriction and cardiac pump function. For disgust, we found specific increases in vagal cardiac control and decreases in myocardial contractility. These findings provide support for the cardiovascular specificity of fear and disgust and are discussed in terms of a basic emotions approach.

Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Language: en