The Mediational Roles of Law of Contagion and Threat Estimations in the Relation Between Disgust and Contamination-Based OCD Symptoms

Goal: The law of contagion is one of the sympathetic magic principals and is a cognitive distortion related with disgust. To explain how and with which mechanism, disgust can lead to contamination-OCD symptoms, the present study supposes that the emotion of disgust can activate the law of contagion which in turn may motivate threat estimations that finally, results in OCD symptoms. Method: This study has a correlational research design. Participants were 495 students (59% women) from Olum Tahghighat University that recruited through convenience sampling. All the participants completed all the questionnaires in the same order: threat estimation scenarios, Vancouver contamination subscale (VOCI-C), negative-spiritual contagion subscale from Contagion Sensitivity Scale (CSS) and core disgust subscale from Disgust Scale (DS). This model was examined through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).  Results: The finding revealed that the proposed model had a good fit based on reported indices: X2, CMIN/DF, GFI, CFI, AGFI, RMSEA. Conclusion: As the present results displayed there are mediational roles for law of contagion and threat estimations in the relation between disgust and OCD symptoms. This proposed psychopathological model can help to promote the disgust theory in OCD and may have implications for cognitive behavioral therapy.