The Impact of City Animal and Plant Raising on People's Level of Disgust towards Ants and Yellow Jackets

Studies have shown that urban life and less contact with nature can increase disgust towards insects and gardening reduces the level of disgust towards them. Since animals and plants are part of nature, our hypothesis in this research was that keeping animals and plants in the city is somehow contact with nature and has an effect on reducing disgust towards insects. To test this hypothesis, a questionnaire was distributed to 1092 people randomly in Kabul city. The level of disgust against ants and yellow jackets among those who raise animals and plants is lower than that of those who do not. The reasons for disgusting ants and yellow jackets included fear, contamination, appearance, lack of interaction, and unfamiliarity, and they were different between those who raise animals and plants and those who do not. The motivation to destroy ants and yellow jackets was higher among those who do not raise animals and plants. On the other side, there is a strong association between level of disgust and reaction against yellow jackets and ants. These �ndings show that raising animals and plants in the city can reduce the level of disgust against insects which supports their conservation. To reduce the disgust towards insects, we suggest encouraging the keeping of animals and plants in the city, and a decrease in the level of disgust will reduce a strong reaction (like killing) towards them. For more clari�cation, research is needed on the effects of different types of raising animals and plants.


Introduction
Insects with the highest papulation are widely spread around the world (Zhang 2011) and play a vital role in the survival and conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity (Kellert 1993;Samways 1993;Weisser and Siemann 2008).Although it is clearly known how important insects are for the conservation of ecosystems, no attention is paid to them, and the efforts for their protection are much less than those of other organisms (Cardoso 2011).Additionally, a large number of people in different countries tend to destroy them by using various methods (Panagiotakopulu et al. 1995;Ware and Whitacre 2004).The most common method is the use of insecticides.In addition to killing insects, the use of insecticides causes environmental pollution and adverse effects on humans' health (Paidi et al. 2021;Zhang et al. 2021).So, knowing the factors that reduce the aversion to insects and adapting them can be considered essential in the protection of insects for the survival of ecosystems and not using insecticides excessively and unnecessarily.
Most people think that insects are fearful, invidious, hazardous, and ugly.This thought makes conservation of insects a problem, as it is shown that negative perceptions toward organisms have a negative effect on people's support for the preservation of those organisms (Maresova and Prokop and Fančovičová 2013a, b).So, in order to increase people's attention and support, it is necessary to reduce disgust towards insects (Shipley and Bixler 2017;Azil et al. 2021).This desire could be achieved by identifying the effective factors (increasers and decreasers of disgust).
A negative attitude towards insects is interpreted as disgust (Prokop and Fančovičová 2011).Scientists have de ned disgust as avoiding harm and pathogenic agents (Rozin et al. 2000).Studies show that the main reason for disgust towards insects is that people believe the insects transmit pathogens (Prokop and Fančovičová 2011;Stevenson et al. 2009).Some insects, like mosquitoes and lice, may transmit pathogens; however, groups of insects such as ants and wasps do not transmit pathogens to humans (Small 2019).Unfortunately, these insects have also been disgusted by humans, while they are an important part of ecosystems and are bene cial to humans (Kellert 1993;Samways 1993).This emotion might be caused by a lack of knowledge and contact with insects, which is related to urbanization (Soga We believe that raising plants and animals on a small scale in the city is somehow a way of getting touched with nature and can play a role in decreasing the disgust towards insects.Therefore, in this study, using a questionnaire, we evaluated the effects of raising and maintaining plants and animals on the level of disgust towards two familiar, well-known, and visible insects (ants and wasps) in Kabul city to determine whether raising plants and animals on a small scale in the city affects the level of disgust towards these insects or not.
Additionally, the reason for disgust towards insects is reported to be lack of familiarity (Sogari et al. 2023) and knowledge about insects (Azil et al. 2021), harmfulness, and transmission of diseases by them (Lorenz et al. 2014;Prokop et al. 2009).So, in the current study, the reason for disgust towards these insects has also been asked of those who rear animals and plants and those who do not rear animals and plants to determine whether there is a difference in the reasons for disgust towards ants and yellow jackets between them.If the level of disgust towards insects is lower among animals and plant raisers than among those who do not rear animals and plants, their reaction should also be smoother.
Therefore, the reaction of attendants in the case of seeing ants and yellow jackets has been asked.
Most studies about disgust towards insects are in western and developed East Asian countries; there are very few studies on this issue in Central and South Asian countries, and no studies on this issue have been conducted in Afghanistan.This is the rst study on disgust towards insects in an Islamic and Central Asian country.

Materials and Methods
Participants and the method of questionnaire distribution All participants were ordinary people living in Kabul city (n = 1092).They were over 18 years old (SI 2).
Since there is little internet access in Kabul city, questionnaires were printed out and then distributed to the participants.After distributing the questionnaire, its materials were carefully explained, and more than one day was given to ll out and return the questionnaire.Before distributing the questionnaire, they were asked about their desire to answer the questions, and to ensure that they live in Kabul City, they were also asked about their residence.Personal details such as address, name, and contact number were not included in the questionnaire.

Questionnaire
A questionnaire was included for two famous and well-known insects (ants and yellow jackets) that everybody knows about.Due to the lack of facilities, we could not include more insects or share color pictures of insects.First of all, sex, level of study, and age were added.After that, the questions "do you keep any kind of animals?" and "do you rear any kind of plants?" were included.To measure the level of disgust towards yellow jackets and ants, we used a ve-point scale (1 = no disgust, 2 = care about and little disgust, 3 = some disgust, 4 = disgust, and 5 = completely disgust) so that from the ve choices they should select one for each of them (Fukano and Soga 2021).
For nding the reason of disgust, from those participants who selected from 2 to 5 in the level of disgust towards ants and yellow jackets, the question What is the reason of disgust towards ants and yellow jackets was asked, and 5 choices, including fear, contamination, appearance, lack of interaction, and unfamiliarity, were shared to select.
To nd the reaction of participants against ants and yellow jackets, we asked the question, "What is your reaction when you see ants or yellow jackets?" from the participants and gave them three choices (no reaction, eliminate, or escape away and kill) to select (SI 1).

Data analysis
To evaluate the effect of animal and plant rearing on the level of disgust against ants and yellow jackets, a GLM (generalized linear model) with a Poisson distribution was used.The level of disgust was considered a response variable, and rearing animals, rearing plants, sex, level of education, and age were considered explanatory variables.To nd the level of signi cance, the Likelihood Rate Test (LRT) was used.To clarify the differences in the reason for disgust and reaction towards ants and yellow jackets if they see them between those who keep animals and plants, a chi-square test was applied.The analysis was done in R version 4.1.3for Microsoft Windows.
To nd the association between level of disgust with reason of disgust and reaction on time face ant and yellow jackets the Eta test in SPSS version 23 was used.

Results
The analysis of the ndings shows that there is a signi cant effect of rearing animals and plants on the level of disgust towards yellow jackets and ants.However, there was no effect of age, degree, or sex (Table 1).The level of disgust was lower among those who rear animals and plants than among those who do not rear animals and plants towards yellow jackets and ants (Figs. 1 and 2).There was a weak association between level of disgust and reason for disgust towards yellow jackets and ants (Eta test, Yellow jackets: η = 0.26, η 2 = 0.026, Ants: η = 0.187, η 2 = 0.035, Figs.7 and 9).However, there was a strong association between level of disgust and reactions towards yellow jackets and ants (Eta test, Yellow jackets: η = 0.516, η 2 = 0.266, Ants: η = 0.522, η 2 = 0.272).The level of disgust among those who selected Kill is much higher than that of those who selected No Action and Keep Away or Escape (Figs. 8 and 10).

Discussion
The ecological and economic importance of insects is undeniable (Kellert 1993 ).Also, a study has found that gardening can be a means of contact with nature and have signi cant effects on reducing insect aversion (Vanderstock et al. 2022).In this study, our hypothesis was that any contact with plants and dealing with animals, even on a small scale, in the city can have an effect on the level of disgust towards insects, and the reaction of those who raise plants and animals on a small scale will be smooth against insects.The ndings of this research con rm these hypotheses and show that raising animals and plants on a small scale in the city can have an effect on reducing the disgust against insects.
This research was conducted on two types of insects (ants and yellow jackets), which were familiar to everyone.In addition to people's awareness about them, the mentioned insects are found everywhere, and people face them every year (Lin et al. 2018).Since previous studies have reported that urbanization increases the level of disgust against insects (Fukano and Soga 2021), in this research we conducted our study on urban dwellers, and none of the participants lived outside of Kabul city.In the city of Kabul, people mostly keep ornamental birds, rabbits, and cats in their houses, and the number of those who raise dogs is very low.Among the plants, the majority of people grow ornamental owers that are kept in pots.In this study, the type of animals and plants, whether the reduction of insect aversion among animal and plant raisers is different according to the type of animals and plants or not, has not been studied, and another issue that should be studied in the future is the effects of the mass and the number of raising animals and plants.Since previous studies show that the extent of going to nature leads to a decrease in disgust against insects, and on the contrary, increasing the level of urbanization leads to an increase in disgust against insects (Soga et al. 2020;Fukano and Soga 2021), it shows that the extent of raising animals and plants may have an effect on the level of disgust.
In general, the feeling of disgust against insects has been related to disease (Lorenz et  The results obtained in this research also show that the mentioned factors have effects on the disgust of ants and yellow jackets, but these effects are different among those who raise animals and plants compared to those who do not raise animals and plants.The obtained results show that those who do not raise animals and plants are more afraid of these insects than those who raise animals and plants, but the number of those who think about insect contamination among animal and plant raisers is higher than that of those who do not raise animals and plants.As expected, the majority of the participants are afraid of the yellow jackets, but in the case of ants, the majority of the participants think that the ants are infected with pathogens.The number of those who do not like the appearance of the ant was higher among animals and plant raisers, but it is the opposite in the case of the yellow jackets.The number of people who are not familiar with yellow jackets and ants is higher among those who do not raise animals and plants than among those who raise animals and plants.This means that raising animals and plants has an effect on familiarity with insects, and familiarity with insects can have an effect on reducing disgust against insects.
If keeping animals and growing plants has an effect on the level of disgust towards insects, the reaction should be different too, especially in the part about killing insects.The obtained results show that the number of insect destroyers is lower among those who raise animals and plants compared to those who do not raise animals and plants.This proves that the level of disgust against insects can be reduced by raising animals and plants.
Some studies have shown that females hate insects more than males (Fukano and Soga 2021), but another study has shown that gender has no effect on the level of disgust towards insects (Vanderstock et al. 2022).In our study, gender had no effect on the level of disgust towards ants and yellow jackets.In addition to gender, age and type of education had no effect on the level of disgust either, while previous studies have shown that aging and having knowledge have a direct relationship with decreasing disgust towards insects (Soga et al. 2020;Azil et al. 2021).To ensure that the results are not in uenced by gender, education level, or age, these three factors were also included in the analysis, and none of them had an effect on the level of disgust towards ants and yellow jackets.So, the mentioned factors have no effect on the level of disgust against insects among animal and plant raisers compared to those who do not rear animals and plants.
We found that the type of reaction against yellow jackets and ants at the time is associated with the level of disgust (those who hate insects more have more severe reactions).This means that if we want to protect insects, we must reduce our level of disgust towards them.One of the solutions that our study suggests to reduce the level of hatred against insects and to protect them is to keep animals and plants.
With the ever-increasing population of the planet, the need of humans for food, especially protein sources, is increasing, and humans try to use every source.One of these sources is insects, whose use is increasing day by day.In Islamic countries, some types of insects are used, but not all insects.Afghanistan itself is one of the Islamic countries, and despite the fact that Islam does not prohibit the use of insects such as locusts, the use of insects is not promoted in the culture of the Afghan people.On the other hand, with the exception of honey bees, insects are not used as pets or for rearing animals.This study is the rst research on insect aversion in Afghanistan.Although there is a cultural difference between the people of Afghanistan and the countries of the world in terms of using and dealing with insects, comparative research on the difference in the level of disgust towards insects between Afghanistan and some countries of the world is suggested.
In conclusion, the ndings of this research show that in addition to growing plants, raising animals also has an effect on reducing the level of disgust against insects, and growing plants and animals on a small scale inside the city can have an effect on reducing the level of disgust towards insects.In order to reduce the level of disgust towards insects and their conservation, according to our ndings, the development and extension of raising animals and plants in cities are suggested.It is the rst study in Afghanistan, and the level of disgust towards yellow jackets and ants is higher among those who reacted severely.Further studies are needed to nd the effects of the type, mass, and number of animals and plants raised on the level of disgust towards insects.A comparative study on disgust towards insects between Afghanistan and other countries is also suggested.

Declarations
Acknowledgements Thanks to Dr. Fukana Yuya for his fruitful comments and all participants for their support and kindness.
Funding The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.

Contributions
Both authors contributed to the study conception and design.Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Farkhary Sayed Ibrahim and Neyazi Abdul Jawid.The rst draft of the manuscript was written by Sayed Ibrahim Farkhary and both authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript.Both authors read and approved the nal manuscript.The difference between the level of disgust and the reason for disgusting yellow jackets Mean ± SD.
The difference between the level of disgust and the reaction against yellow jackets on the time of facing them.Mean ± SD.
The difference between the level of disgust and the reason for disgusting ants.Mean ± SD.
et al. 2020; Fukano and Soga 2021).Some of the factors that play a role in disgust towards insects have been revealed by researchers.It has been shown that urbanization increases the level of disgust towards insects; on the contrary, experience decreases the disgust towards insects (Soga et al. 2020; Fukano and Soga 2021; Soga et al. 2016).There are many people in the city who rear animals (such as sh, ornamental birds, dogs, and cats) and plants (such as ornamental plants) in their houses (Akinnifesi et al. 2010; Sabloff 2001).In fact, it could be a kind of contact with nature on a small scale (Lin et al. 2018; Vanderstock et al. 2022).So, there is a possibility of the effect of rearing animals and plants, even with small skills, at home on decreasing disgust towards insects.Previous studies have shown that gardening decreases the level of disgust towards insects.Plants are part of nature; somehow dealing with plants reduces the disgust towards insects.In addition to plants, animals are part of nature (Myers and Saunders 2002), and raising animals may also have an effect on decreasing disgust towards insects.

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Samways 1993; Weisser and Siemann 2008), but they are among the most hated creatures by humans (Lockwood 2013; Prokop and Randler 2018).This feeling of disgust is one of the big obstacles to their conservation and maintenance (Maresova and Frynta 2007; Martín-López et al. 2009; Knight 2008; Prokop and Fančovičová 2010; Prokop and Fančovičová 2013a,b).Recently, studies have shown that urbanization has caused an increase in disgust towards insects (Fukano and Soga 2021), and the experience of going to nature can have an effect on reducing the disgust towards insects (Soga et al. 2020

Figure 1 The
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Figure 2 The
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Figure 3 The
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Figure 4 Shows
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Table 1
The in uence of variables on the level of disgust towards yellow jackets and ants 2 = 55.168,DF= 4, p < 0.001; rearing plants vs not rearing plants: x 2 = 24.333,DF=4,p<0.001,Fig.4).The number of respondents who are afraid of ants was higher among those who are not rearing animals and plants than among those who are rearing animals and plants (keeping animals: 4%, not keeping animals: 16%, rearing plants: 10%, not rearing plants: 13%).The number of respondents to fear in the case of yellow jackets was higher than that of ants, and the rate was higher in those who rear animals and plants than in those who do not rear animals and plants (keeping animals: 61.4%, not keeping animals: 56.4%, rearing plants: 61.6%, not rearing plants: 53.7%).The number of attendants who think an ant is contaminated was higher than yellow jackets, and in ants, the rate was higher among those who are rearing animals and plants than among those who are not rearing animals and plants (keeping animals: 51%, not keeping animals: 40.8%, rearing plants: 47.1%, not rearing plants: 39.5%).In the case of yellow jackets, it was also similar to that of ants (keeping animals: 26.3%, not keeping animals: 17.9%, rearing plants: 23.4%, not rearing plants: 17.5%).The number of people who do not like the appearance of ants is higher among those who rear animals and plants than among those who do not rear animals and plants (keeping animals: 16.3%, not keepingThe rate of unfamiliarity with ants was higher among those who do not rear animals and plants than among those who rear animals and plants, respectively (keeping animals: 2%, not keeping animals: 5.3%, rearing plants: 3.4%, not rearing plants: 5.3%).Towards the yellow jacket, it was also similar to that of an ant (keeping animals: 0%, not keeping animals: 3.8%, rearing plants: 1%, not rearing plants: 4.9%).Among those respondents who keep animals, 21.5% have no reaction, 47.4% escape or eliminate them, and 31.6%kill or destroy yellow jackets when they see them, while respondents who do not keep animals, 11.5% have no reaction, 52.6% eliminate or escape away, and 31.9%kill or destroy yellow jackets when they see them.Among those who rear plants, 17% have no reaction, 51.1% eliminate or escape away, and 31.9%kill or destroy yellow jackets, while among those who do not rear plants, 12.2% have no reaction, 48.8% eliminate or escape away, and 39% kill or destroy yellow jackets when they see them.
disgust was asked.The reason of disgust was signi cantly different between those who rear animals and plants versus those who do not rear animals and plants towards yellow jackets (Chi-square test, keeping animals vs not keeping animals: x 2 = 40.973,DF=4,p<0.001; rearing plants vs not rearing plants: x 2 = 32.412,DF=4,p<0.001, Fig.3) and ants (Chi-square test, keeping animals vs not keeping animals: x animals: 11.8%, rearing plants: 16.1%, not rearing plants: 7.9%).In the case of yellow jackets, most of the people who are not rearing animals and plants do not like the appearance of them (keeping animals: 3.5%, not keeping animals: 7.7%, rearing plants: 5.3%, not rearing plants: 7.3%).Lack of interaction as the reason for disgust towards ants was higher among those who do not rear plants than those who rear plants, but it was almost equal between those who keep animals versus those who do not keep animals (keeping animals: 26.5%, not keeping animals: 26.3%, rearing plants: 23%, not rearing plants: 34.2%).In the case of the yellow jacket, the rate was higher among those who do not rear animals and plants than among those who rear animals and plants (keeping animals: 14.1%, not keeping animals: 8.8%, rearing plants: 9.6%, not rearing plants: 17.1%).wassignicantly different between those who keep animals versus do not keep animals and those who rear plants versus do not rear plants (Chi-square test, keeping animals vs. not keeping animals: x 2 = 20.486,DF=2, p < 0.001; rearing plants vs. not rearing plants: x 2 = 14.72,DF = 2, p < 0.01, Figs.5 and 6).
al. 2014), being injured by insects (Kavaliers et al. 2018), the shape of insects (Prokop et al. 2021), interacting with insects (Shipley and Bixler 2017; Sogari et al. 2023), and having information about them (Azil et al. 2021), and it has been found that these factors have an effect on the preservation and maintenance of insects (Lorenz et al. 2014; Shipley and Bixler 2017; Kavaliers et al. 2018; Azil et al. 2021; Prokop et al. 2021).