The roles of gender, sex role, and disgust in fear of animals

Ninety-six subjects, resident in Adelaide, Australia, were administered the Disgust and Contamination Sensitivity Questionnaire (DCSQ); the General Disgust Questionnaire (GDQ), the Fear Survey Schedule (FSS, Revised Edition); the Australian Sex Role Scale (ASRS), and reported their fear of 15 animals on a 10-point scale. A three-factor solution was forced on the animal fear scores namely, ‘predatory’, ‘fear relevant’, and ‘repulsive’. Scores on the DCSQ did not correlate with any of the categories of animal fear or with the Animal Fear subscale of the FSS. In contrast, scores on the GDQ correlated with scores on the FSS, fear relevant, and repulsive animals, but not to predatory animals. Femininity correlated significantly with fear of all categories of animal and scores on the FSS, whereas masculinity did not. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that femininity and GDQ scores were significant predictors of scores on the FSS. Further, femininity predicted fear of predatory animals while disgust did not. In contrast, disgust predicted fear of repulsive animals whereas femininity did not. Finally, both femininity and disgust predicted fear of fear-relevant animals. It is suggested that femininity is predictive of fear of animals in general, while disgust is predictive of disease avoidance.