Gender Differences in Psychophysiological Responses to Disgust

Abstract

Several studies have revealed that women report stronger feelings of disgust than men ( Gross & Levenson, 1995 ; Schienle, Schäfer, Stark, Walter, & Vaitl, 2005 ). However, the extent to which this gender difference also influences physiological disgust responses remains an open question. In Experiment 1, 54 female and 41 male participants were exposed to slides of different disgust-content. In Experiment 2, 47 women and 53 men watched two film clips showing hygiene-related or food-related disgust stimuli, respectively. Differences between males and females in reported and physiological disgust responses (heart rate, electrodermal activity, salivary cortisol, secretory immunoglobulin A) were tested by analysis of variance. Replicating previous studies, women reported stronger feelings of disgust than men across all disgust inductions. Additionally, in Study 1, women showed a higher increase in skin conductance level than men. In conclusion, gender moderates subjective responses to disgust, whereas physiological disgust responses are only marginally moderated by gender. Gender stereotypes as an explanation for the results are discussed.