Trypophobia discomfort depends on viewing context manipulation

Trypophobia is the extreme negative reaction to clusters of circular objects. The present preregistered study investigates how context impacts trypophobic reactions through basic situational priming / cognitive appraisal paradigms. Participants were randomly assigned to view trypophobic imagery under one of three conditions: no prompt (control), art gallery exhibition (distraction from trypophobia), or trypophobia-inducing. Results showed that trypophobic reactions depended on rater's level of trypophobia, but also on the situational context. Both high- and low-trypophobic individuals were more comfortable in the trypophobia-inducing context compared to their respective control group. Low-trypophobic individuals found the art gallery condition images the most uncomfortable to view, while high-trypophobic individuals found this condition to be the most comfortable to view. Providing social context or trigger warnings led to less viewing discomfort for those who were strongly-trypophobic. Although age and anxiety levels did not impact the main findings, we found that both play a small role in trypophobic manifestation. Considering age, we argue that older age might be responsible for lower trypophobic tendencies compared to the social learning model of trypophobia. To summarize, these results show that trypophobic reactions can be affected by context, which may help future clinicians and those severely impacted by such imagery.