An examination of the influence of threat on judgments of contaminant spread
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Psychology, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Herba, Joanna Karoline
issued: 2013-05-15T09:15:20Z
issued: 2013
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Concern about the spread of infectious agents and associated washing and avoidance behaviour vary widely across individuals. Extremes on either end of the spectrum can have negative consequences: overconcern can lead to undue distress and excessive cautionary behaviour, and underconcern can lead to the contraction and spread of disease. The purpose of this series of four studies was to examine variables that contribute to individual differences in judgments of contaminant spread. Specifically, I examined whether threat influenced judgments of spread. Studies 1 and 2 were conducted with a general (unselected) sample of participants recruited from a university campus (N = 75 and N = 77 respectively), while Studies 3 and 4 extended the research to two specific populations of interest (49 nursing students in Study 3 and 21 participants with contamination-related OCD in Study 4). Participants were randomly assigned to judge the spread of either a: threatening contaminant (disease-causing bacteria), non-threatening contaminant (harmless bacteria) or non-contaminant (vegetable juice in Study 1, yogurt containing probiotic bacteria in Studies 2, 3 and 4). To ensure participants’ safety, these substances were not actually present—rather participants were led to believe that one of these substances was placed on a cutting board and then spread to a series of objects. Findings varied depending on the specific facet of spread examined and the population under study. Among the general university sample and participants with OCD, identification as a contaminant increased judgments of physical spread, but threat did not. Among nursing students, there was a trend for threat to increase judgments of physical spread. With regard to danger along the chain of contagion, threat increased danger ratings for the general university sample and nursing students, but not for participants with OCD. Rather, the OCD group viewed danger as elevated along the chain of contagion for both contaminan…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/44476
note: An examination of the influence of threat on judgments of contaminant spread by JOANNA KAROLINE HERBA B.Sc. McGill University M.A. The University of British Columbia A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Psychology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) May 2013 © Joanna Karoline Herba, 2013 ii Abstract Concern about the spread of infectious agents and associated washing and avoidance behaviour varies widely across individuals. Extremes on either end of the spectrum can have negative consequences: overconcern can lead to undue distress and excessive cautionary behaviour and underconcern can lead to the contraction and spread of disease. The purpose of this series of four studies was to examine variables that contribute to individual differences in judgments of contaminant spread. Specifically, I examined whether threat influenced judgments of spread. Studies 1 and 2 were conducted with a general (unselected) sample of participants recruited from a university campus (N = 75 and N = 77 respectively), while Studies 3 and 4 extended the research to two specific populations of interest (49 nursing students in Study 3 and 21 participants with contamination-related OCD in Study 4). Participants were randomly assigned to judge the spread of either a: threatening contaminant (disease-causing bacteria), non-threatening contaminant (harmless bacteria) or non-contaminant (vegetable juice in Study 1, yogurt containing probiotic bacteria in Studies 2, 3 and 4). To ensure participants’ safety, these substances were not actually present—rather participants were led to believe that one of these substances was placed on a cutting board and then spread to a series of objects. Findings varied depending on the specific facet of spread examined and the population under study. Among the general university sample and participants with OCD, identification as a contaminant increased ju…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2014-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0073843
language: eng
degree discipline: Psychology
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/44476