(PS7-C65) Examining the Moderating Effect of Ethnicity on the Indirect Influence of Gender on Animal Phobia Through Disgust

As disgust proneness has globally increased, spurred on by the pandemic, an improved understanding of disgust as the underlying emotional mechanisms of various anxiety symptoms, such as animal phobic distress, can contribute to improving the effectiveness of interventions for target symptoms. Consistent with the disease-avoidance model (Matchett & Davey, 1991), disgust proneness appears to be associated with spider and snake phobia symptoms (Olatunji et al., 2017; Vernon & Hirai, 2012). Gender differences in spider and snake phobia and disgust proneness are evident (e.g., Vernon & Hirai, 2012), but how disgust may mediate the relationship between gender and animal phobia is not clear, particularly when effects of ethnicity are taken into consideration. An interaction effect of gender and ethnicity on animal phobia likely exists, as past research has suggested that being Hispanic American is a factor for elevated anxiety symptoms (e.g., Varela et al., 2004; Weems et al., 2002). The magnitudes of the association between gender and phobia may be influenced by ethnicity. The current study examined whether disgust would mediate the association between gender and phobic distress, moderated by ethnicity, in a large Hispanic and non-Hispanic white American sample.

Non-Hispanic White American (673 men, 1,079 women) and Hispanic American (171 men, 481 women) undergraduate students completed demographic questions, the Spider Phobia Questionnaire (SPQ; Klorman et al., 1974), the Snake Phobia Questionnaire (SNAQ; Klorman et al., 1974), and the Disgust Emotion Scale (DES; Walls & Kleinknecht, 1996) online.

Two moderated mediation models were tested, using PROCESS (Hayes, 2022). Phobic distress (spider phobia and snake phobia in separate models) was the dependent variable. Gender (women=1; men=0) was the predictor and disgust propensity was the mediator. Ethnicity (Hispanic American = 1; non-Hispanic white American=0) was the moderator. The moderator was put for the three paths for an exploratory purpose Disgust partially mediated the association between gender (women) and higher spider phobia scores for both Hispanics (indirect effect = .29 [.20, .39]; direct effect = .25 [.09, .42]) and non-Hispanic White Americans (indirect effect = .27 [.23, .32]; direct effect = .33 [.24, .42]). Disgust also partially mediated the association between gender (women) and higher snake phobia scores for both Hispanics (indirect effect = .27 [.19, .37]; direct effect = .20 [.04, .37]) and non-Hispanic White Americans (indirect effect = .26 [.21, .31]; direct effect = .31 [.22, .40]). Ethnicity was only a significant moderator for the relationship between disgust and phobic symptoms (spider, snake) and did not impact the magnitudes of the indirect effects.

The current findings suggest that gender is a strong predictor for animal phobia and part of the effect of gender on phobic distress was explained by disgust propensity. The expected interaction effect of gender and ethnicity on animal phobias was not found. Instead, the significant interaction effects of ethnicity and disgust on phobia were found. Understanding phobic distress by taking gender, ethnicity, and disgust into account likely contributes to refining clinical practice targeting animal phobia.