An Investigation Into Psychological Predictors of Trypophobia Severity
Participant information invitation
You are being invited to take part in a research study. It is important for you to understand why the research is being conducted and what it will involve. Please take time to read the following information carefully
What is the purpose of the study?
Trypophobia is described as the fear or aversion to patterns of holes (Martinez-Aguayo et al., 2018) and individuals who experience trypophobia report feeling anxious, nauseous and repulsed by trypophobic content (Kupfer & Le, 2017). The purpose of this study is to investigate the psychological predictors of trypophobia severity such as disgust sensitivity, perceived vulnerability to disease, personality domains and self-reported fear of skin disease.
What do I have to do?
You will first be asked your age and gender identity. Then, you will be asked to report how trypophobic you think you are using a slider scale as well as how much fear is provoked by skin disease. You will be asked to complete a disgust sensitivity scale involving questions regarding moral, pathogen and sexual disgust. Also, a different scale will be used which assesses how uncomfortable you feel in the presence of potential disease transmission as well as your perceived susceptibility to contracting infectious diseases. In addition to this, you will be asked to complete a questionnaire based on characteristics of your personality. The Trypophobia Questionnaire will be used to measure how trypophobic you are. This will involve looking at two trypophobic images (the lotus pod and the honeycomb) and then measuring, using a scale, the extent to which you react negatively to the images. We anticipate that this study will last approximately 15 minutes. We hope that you find participating in this study a rewarding experience and we greatly appreciate your contribution.
What are the possible disadvantages and risks of taking part in the study?
There are no anticipated disadvantages in taking part. However, you may feel an aversive reaction when viewing the trypophobic images of the lotus pod and honeycomb, or experience discomfort or upset when filling out the disgust sensitivity scale due to the explicit nature of some of the sexual disgust questions. If this is the case, or for any other reason, you can leave any questions that you are uncomfortable answering blank and you can withdraw at any time.
Why have I been chosen?
A data sample from the general population is required.
Do I have to take part?
No, you are not obliged to participate in this study. Whether you do or not is completely your decision. If you decide to continue, you will be asked to provide consent online. You can withdraw from participating at any time during the experiment and do not need to give a reason.
Will my taking part in this study be kept confidential?
Yes, the online platform used to host this study enables anonymous completion of all questionnaires, maintaining confidentiality. No identifiable data is recorded. Only the demographic information of age and gender is required. Since there are no ways to link data to an individual, it is impossible to withdraw data after the last submit button. If you no longer wish to share your answers, you must discontinue from the study before final completion.
What will happen to the results of the research study?
Your data will always be entirely confidential and anonymous and is gathered using software in line with GDPR, and stored on a secure server. Data, without any personal identifying information, may be made publicly available in an online database for re-analysis by other researchers. Anonymous results of this study will be presented in student research reports and may also be presented at conferences or published in journals, books, and the popular media. This research is conducted in line with the British Psychological Society’s Code of Ethics and Conduct
Who can I contact if I want more information?
If you would like more information about the study and/or a summary of the anonymised group results, please feel free to contact the student researchers: Carrie Buchanan – 2437906B@student.gla.ac.uk Sophie Lawrie - 2437787L@student.gla.ac.uk
Or their project supervisor: Dr Eugene Dawydiak - Eugene.Dawydiak@glasgow.ac.uk
Please login or register if you do not yet have an account.