Self-reported fears to common indigenous animals in an adult UK population: the role of disgust sensitivity.

Two studies are described which report on the prevalence and intensity of self-reported fears to common indigenous animals in an adult UK population. The results of Study 1 suggest that (i) around a third of the variance in fear of indigenous animals can be accounted for by two factors which represent the theoretically coherent categories of invertebrates (e.g. slug, worm, cockroach) and fear-relevant animals (e.g. rat, snake, bat); (ii) females tend to report significantly greater levels of fear than males to a large majority of prevalently feared animals; and (iii) there were no obviously consistent patterns of fear with age. Study 2 identifies individual disgust sensitivity levels as being an important and significant predictor of fear of animals in both the invertebrate and fear-relevant categories, and finds that females report significantly higher disgust sensitivity levels than males. Since most of the prevalently feared indigenous animals appear to be disgust-relevant, this latter finding helps to explain the generally higher fear ratings given by females.