{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]],"date-time":"2026-09-25T06:13:10Z","timestamp":1790316790838,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":56,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,14]],"date-time":"2021-09-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1631577600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:sec id=\"sec001\">\n<jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>Trypophobia is characterised by an aversion to or even revulsion for patterns of holes or visual stimuli featuring such patterns. Past research has shown that trypophobic stimuli trigger emotional and physiological reactions, but relatively little is known about the antecedents, prodromes, or simply covariates of trypophobia.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec id=\"sec002\">\n<jats:title>Aim<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>The goals of this study were (a) to draw the contours of the nomological network of trypophobia by assessing the associations of symptoms of trypophobia with several constructs that were deemed relevant from past research on anxiety disorders and specific phobias, (b) to compare such associations with those found for symptoms of spider phobia and blood and injection phobia (alternative dependent variables), and (c) to investigate the main effect of gender on symptoms of trypophobia and replicate the association of gender with symptoms of spider phobia and blood and injection phobia (higher scores for women).<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec id=\"sec003\">\n<jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>Participants (<jats:italic>N<\/jats:italic> = 1,134, 53% men) in this cross-sectional study completed an online questionnaire assessing the constructs of interest.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec id=\"sec004\">\n<jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>Most assessed constructs typically associated with anxiety disorders (neuroticism, conscientiousness, anxiety sensitivity, trait anxiety, disgust sensitivity, and disgust propensity) were also associated with trypophobia in the predicted direction. All of these constructs were also associated with spider phobia and blood and injection phobia. Behavioral inhibition was negatively associated with trypophobia and spider phobia\u2014contrary to what was expected, but positively with blood and injection phobia. We found no gender difference in trypophobia, whereas women scored higher on spider phobia and blood and injection phobia.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec id=\"sec005\">\n<jats:title>Discussion<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>Although some differences were observed, the nomological network of trypophobia was largely similar to that of spider phobia and blood and injection phobia. Further studies are needed to clarify similarities and dissimilarities between trypophobia and specific phobia.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0257409","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,14]],"date-time":"2021-09-14T17:24:09Z","timestamp":1631640249000},"page":"e0257409","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":12,"title":["An exploration of the nomological network of trypophobia"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9441-7592","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Eric","family":"Mayor","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Andrea","family":"Meyer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Alessandro","family":"Miani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Roselind","family":"Lieb","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"pone.0257409.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1027","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jpsychires.2011.03.006","article-title":"Gender differences in anxiety disorders: prevalence, course of illness, comorbidity and burden of illness","volume":"45","author":"CP McLean","year":"2011","journal-title":"J Psychiatr Res"},{"key":"pone.0257409.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"136","DOI":"10.1016\/j.mppsy.2007.01.007","article-title":"Epidemiology of anxiety disorders","volume":"6","author":"T Michael","year":"2007","journal-title":"Psychiatry"},{"key":"pone.0257409.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"237","DOI":"10.1177\/0706743716640757","article-title":"The age of onset of anxiety disorders: a meta-analysis","volume":"62","author":"JM de Lijster","year":"2017","journal-title":"Can J Psychiatry"},{"key":"pone.0257409.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"655","DOI":"10.1016\/j.euroneuro.2011.07.018","article-title":"The size and burden of mental disorders and other disorders of the brain in Europe 2010","volume":"21","author":"HU Wittchen","year":"2011","journal-title":"Eur Neuropsychopharmacol"},{"key":"pone.0257409.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1176\/appi.books.9780890425596","volume-title":"Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5\u00ae)","author":"American Psychiatric Association","year":"2013"},{"key":"pone.0257409.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"729","DOI":"10.1080\/02699931.2017.1345721","article-title":"Disgusting clusters: trypophobia as an overgeneralised disease avoidance response","volume":"32","author":"TR Kupfer","year":"2018","journal-title":"Cogn Emot"},{"key":"pone.0257409.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1147","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jad.2020.06.002","article-title":"Trypophobia: heart rate, heart rate variability and cortical haemodynamic response","volume":"274","author":"AT Le","year":"2020","journal-title":"J Affect Disord"},{"key":"pone.0257409.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"66","DOI":"10.1016\/j.paid.2016.11.068","article-title":"Physiological responses to trypophobic images and further scale validity of the trypophobia questionnaire","volume":"108","author":"RN Pipitone","year":"2017","journal-title":"Pers Individ Differ"},{"key":"pone.0257409.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e4185","DOI":"10.7717\/peerj.4185","article-title":"Pupillometry reveals the physiological underpinnings of the aversion to holes","volume":"6","author":"V Ayzenberg","year":"2018","journal-title":"PeerJ"},{"key":"pone.0257409.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"985","DOI":"10.1007\/s11031-019-09784-8","article-title":"The hole story: an event-related potential study with trypophobic stimuli","volume":"43","author":"A Wabnegger","year":"2019","journal-title":"Motiv Emot"},{"key":"pone.0257409.ref011","first-page":"S90","article-title":"Enhanced early posterior negativity in response to trypophobic stimuli","volume":"52","author":"JW Van Strien","year":"2015","journal-title":"Psychophysiology"},{"key":"pone.0257409.ref012","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1980","DOI":"10.1177\/0956797613484937","article-title":"Fear of holes","volume":"24","author":"GG Cole","year":"2013","journal-title":"Psychol Sci"},{"key":"pone.0257409.ref013","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1847","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2020.01847","article-title":"Object clusters or spectral energy? 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