Disgust can feel like a single, unmistakable reaction. A spoiled meal, an unwanted sexual advance and a serious betrayal can all provoke the same everyday word: disgusting. Psychologists, however, have long argued that these reactions may not come from one undifferentiated system. A newly published validation study suggests that the distinction matters.
Researchers Ann De Buck and Lieven J.R. Pauwels of Ghent University tested a Dutch-language version of the Three-Domain Disgust Scale across two large samples containing 2,797 participants in total. Their results supported a three-part structure separating pathogen disgust, sexual disgust and moral disgust. Just as importantly, the scale generally measured those domains comparably across men and women, although the size of sex differences depended on which form of disgust was being considered.
Why separating disgust into domains matters
Disgust is often discussed as though it were primarily a disease-avoidance response. That account makes intuitive sense for rotten food, bodily fluids and other cues that may signal pathogens. Yet people also use disgust language when evaluating sexual situations and moral violations. The Three-Domain Disgust Scale was designed to distinguish these patterns rather than force them into a single score.
The distinction is more than semantic. If pathogen, sexual and moral disgust have different psychological correlates, combining them can obscure why a person reacts strongly in one setting but not another. A scale used to compare groups also needs measurement invariance: researchers need evidence that the instrument is capturing broadly comparable constructs across those groups before interpreting score differences as substantive differences in disgust.
Two samples tested the Dutch scale
The researchers evaluated the Dutch Three-Domain Disgust Scale in two independent samples. Study 1 included 991 participants and Study 2 included 1,806, giving a combined sample of 2,797 people. The analysis used confirmatory factor analysis to test whether responses fit the theorised three-factor model rather than treating disgust sensitivity as one general dimension.
They then examined measurement invariance across sex. This step asks whether the structure and functioning of the scale are sufficiently comparable for men and women. The study also tested construct and criterion validity by examining how the three disgust domains related to theoretically relevant variables including pair bonding, low morality and outgroup avoidance.
This multi-stage approach is important because a questionnaire can appear reliable while still failing to measure the intended construct cleanly. Structural fit, group comparability and expected relationships with outside variables each address a different part of the validation problem.
The three-domain model held up
Across both samples, confirmatory factor analyses supported the proposed structure of pathogen, sexual and moral disgust. Items loaded on their intended domains and the overall model achieved acceptable fit. The finding supports the idea that disgust sensitivity is better represented as a set of related domain-specific tendencies than as a single interchangeable reaction.
Measurement invariance across sex was fully supported in Study 2 and approximately supported in Study 1. In practical terms, that gives researchers considerably more confidence that comparisons between men and women are not simply artifacts of the Dutch items functioning in fundamentally different ways across the two groups.
The qualification around Study 1 is worth retaining. Psychometric validation is rarely a binary pass-or-fail exercise, and approximate invariance signals that some parameters may differ while the overall scale remains sufficiently comparable for many research purposes. The stronger result in the larger second sample provides useful replication rather than relying on a single dataset.
Sex differences were concentrated in sexual disgust
Women showed higher latent levels of sexual disgust. By contrast, sex differences in pathogen and moral disgust were smaller and varied between the two samples. This pattern is important because it argues against treating a general sex difference in disgust as though it applies equally to every domain.
The result also illustrates why the three-domain framework can be analytically useful. A single overall disgust score could make a pronounced difference in one domain look like a broad difference across disgust as a whole. Separating the dimensions allows researchers to ask where group differences actually occur.
Different forms of disgust linked to different social tendencies
The validity analyses produced a similarly differentiated picture. Sexual disgust was robustly associated with pair bonding, consistent with the idea that sexual disgust sensitivity is connected to mating and relationship strategies. Moral disgust showed a substantial negative association with the study’s Low Morality construct, meaning stronger moral disgust aligned with lower endorsement of the behaviours captured by that measure.
Pathogen disgust showed a more selective pattern. It was consistently positively related to Low Morality, while its relationship with Outgroup Avoidance was weaker and differed between samples. That inconsistency matters because pathogen-avoidance theories are sometimes extended to social and intergroup attitudes. The present findings do not support treating that extension as automatic.
Criterion validity was therefore mixed rather than uniformly strong. Predictors of Low Morality were stable across the studies, whereas prediction of Outgroup Avoidance was less consistent. This is scientifically useful: validation is stronger when unexpected or unstable relationships are reported rather than smoothed into a single claim that the scale predicts everything it might theoretically touch.
What the findings change
For researchers working in Dutch-speaking populations, the immediate contribution is practical. The study provides evidence that the Dutch Three-Domain Disgust Scale can distinguish pathogen, sexual and moral disgust with acceptable structural validity and largely comparable measurement across sex.
The broader implication is conceptual. Disgust may be experienced as one familiar feeling, but the situations that elicit it and the social tendencies associated with it are not interchangeable. A person who is highly sensitive to pathogen cues need not show the same profile in sexual or moral contexts. Likewise, a relationship between one disgust domain and a social attitude should not automatically be generalised to the others.
This matters especially in research on morality and intergroup relations. Disgust has sometimes been invoked as a broad explanatory mechanism for social avoidance or condemnation. The present results instead favour greater specificity. Moral disgust showed the clearest relationship with low morality, while pathogen disgust’s association with outgroup avoidance was comparatively uncertain.
Important limits remain
The study validates a measurement instrument; it does not establish that the three disgust domains are completely separate biological systems, nor does it show that disgust causes pair bonding, morality or outgroup attitudes. Associations between questionnaire measures cannot by themselves establish causal direction.
The evidence is also specific to Dutch-speaking samples and to the constructs included in these analyses. Cross-cultural validation remains important because words, norms and situations carrying disgust can vary across social contexts. The weaker and sample-dependent relationship with outgroup avoidance is another reason to avoid overgeneralising from a scale score to complex social behaviour.
Finally, measurement invariance was approximate rather than complete in Study 1. Although Study 2 provided full support, future work can continue testing whether individual items behave similarly across age groups, cultural backgrounds and other populations beyond the sex comparisons examined here.
A more precise vocabulary for an old emotion
The study’s value lies less in declaring that people feel disgust and more in showing why researchers should ask what kind. Across two large samples, pathogen, sexual and moral disgust formed distinguishable dimensions, showed different patterns of group differences and related differently to social and moral variables.
That precision can improve future research. Instead of using disgust as a catch-all explanation for avoidance, morality or social judgment, researchers can test which domain is involved and whether the relationship replicates. The Dutch validation gives them a stronger tool for doing so.
Source Information
Study: The Dutch Three-Domain Disgust Scale (TDDS): structural validity, measurement invariance, and nomological associations across two large samples
Authors: Ann De Buck and Lieven J.R. Pauwels
Journal: BMC Psychology
Published: 26 September 2026
DOI: 10.1186/s40359-026-05703-y
Study type: Psychometric validation across two independent samples
Sample: 991 participants in Study 1 and 1,806 in Study 2, 2,797 total
