Although well-established questionnaires for various forms of trait disgust exist, state disgust measures, such as the State Disgust Scale by Ihme and Mitte (2009), remain unidimensional. However, previous research suggests that the reaction towards disgusting stimuli can be conceptualized across four distinct dimensions: object disgust, self disgust, moral disgust, and process disgust. As a first step, we designed a 53-item questionnaire based on the conceptual framework of these four dimensions. In the second step, we conducted a pilot study after which the questionnaire was reduced to 26 items. In a final step, we conducted four studies to develop and validate the final questionnaire. The results of the first study reduced the questionnaire to 18 items, while retaining a four-factor structure with high internal consistency and construct validity across all scales. However, items which remained within each factor made it necessary to rename the scales, such that the final questionnaire was divided into physical disgust, self disgust, moral disgust and contamination concerns. Three further studies were conducted to validate the questionnaire’s structure through confirmatory factorial analysis. This work demonstrates that state disgust can be divided into four distinct dimensions, which can be effectively measured using t he Multidimensional State Disgust Questionnaire (MSDQ) .
Rothkegel et al. (Thu,) studied this question.