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Main and Interactive Effects of Negative Posttraumatic Cognitions
and Disgust Sensitivity in Predicting Daily Experiences of Sexual
Trauma-Related Mental Contamination
Jordyn M. Tipsword
1
, Jesse P. McCann
1
, Jessica Flores
1
, C. Alex Brake
2
, and Christal L. Badour
1
1
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky
2
Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Trauma-related mental contamination, or a sense of dirtiness occurring without recent contact with a con-
taminant, is a distressing and often persistent phenomenon after sexual trauma. Following sexual trauma,
cross-sectional work has demonstrated separate positive associations between mental contamination and
(a) negative posttraumatic cognitions about oneself, the world, and/or self-blame and (b) disgust sensitiv-
ity, defined as the extent to which one is prone to distress when experiencing disgust. However, existing
work has been primarily restricted to cross-sectional designs and has yet to consider the potential moder-
ating role of disgust sensitivity in associations between negative posttraumatic cognitions and persistent
mental contamination. The present study used a daily monitoring design to evaluate main and interactive
effects of negative posttraumatic cognitions (about the self, world, and self-blame) and disgust sensitivity
in predicting daily experiences of mental contamination among a sample of 39 women with a history of
sexual trauma. Results revealed a significant main effect of posttraumatic cognitions about the self in pre-
dicting subsequent mental contamination. An unexpected interaction also emerged for posttraumatic cog-
nitions about the world, wherein such cognitions only significantly predicted daily mental contamination
among women high in disgust sensitivity. Findings offer preliminary understanding regarding the role of
cognitions about the self in contributing to ongoing mental contamination as well as the potential contrib-
uting role of cognitions about the world among women more vulnerable to distress when experiencing
disgust. Future work should consider the potential for bidirectional relationships between negative post-
traumatic cognitions and trauma-related mental contamination.
Keywords: mental contamination, posttraumatic cognitions, disgust sensitivity, PTSD
Mental contamination is defined as an experience of contamina-
tion that arises in the absence of a present physical contaminant
(Rachman, 2004). Experiences of mental contamination differ
from experiences of contact contamination—which occur in
response to contact with a contaminant (Rachman, 2004)—and of-
ten involve distressing physiological (e.g., having the sensation
that contaminants are present in the body despite not having been
in recent contact with a contaminant; Coughtrey et al., 2012) and
cognitive (e.g., thinking “I can never be clean again”) sequelae. A
growing body of research has sought to better understand the
emergence and persistence of mental contamination following sex-
ual trauma (i.e., trauma-related mental contamination; Badour
et al., 2013;Fairbrother & Rachman, 2004;Olatunji et al., 2008).
We define sexual trauma here as any unwanted sexual contact
involving actual or threatened force, occurring while an individual
was under the influence of substances and therefore unable to pro-
vide consent, or occurring during childhood.
Existing theoretical work has proposed that mental contamina-
tion may persist following sexual trauma, in part, as individuals
may view themselves as having been inherently or permanently
contaminated by any contact with contaminants that occurred dur-
ing the traumatic event and may experience intrusive memories
that remind them of contact with contaminants that occurred dur-
ing that event (e.g., contact with bodily fluids such as sweat or
semen; Jones et al., 2020). In such a scenario, an individual may
continue to experience mental contamination for months or years
post trauma—and long after any physical contaminants that were
present during the traumatic event have been cleansed—due to a
sense of being made inherently dirty by contact with contaminants
during that event (Jones et al., 2010;Jones et al., 2020). Existing
research consistently underscores that trauma-related mental con-
tamination is both a prevalent and distressing experience among
survivors of sexual trauma (Badour et al., 2013;Brake et al., 2021;
Fairbrother & Rachman, 2004). In a foundational study evaluating
Jordyn M. Tipsword https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8902-9253
This work was supported by the University of Kentucky Office for
Policy Studies on Violence Against Women. This project was also
supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
through Grant UL1TR001998 at the National Institute of Health (NIH).
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not
necessarily represent the official views of the NIH or of the Office for
Policy Studies on Violence Against Women.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jordyn
M. Tipsword, Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, 111-J
Kastle Hall, 171 Funkhouser Drive, Lexington, KY 40506, United States.
Email: jordyn.tipsword@uky.edu
1
Traumatology
©2022 American Psychological Association
ISSN: 1085-9373 https://doi.org/10.1037/trm0000431
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2024, Vol. 30, No. 3, 337–345
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This article was published Online First December 15, 2022.
