Disgust: The Conservative Emotion And Its Political Influence

Disgust is an emotion of rejection or revulsion to something potentially contagious or offensive. Research has shown that conservatives show higher disgust sensitivity than liberals, but this finding has been questioned by some scholars. The relationship between disgust and political orientation has been found to be context-dependent rather than a stable personality difference.

Disgust is believed to have evolved as a response to offensive foods that may cause harm to the body. It is one of the basic emotions of Robert Plutchik's theory of emotions and has been studied extensively by Paul Rozin. It is associated with a decrease in heart rate and is invoked by characteristic facial expressions.

Disgust elicitors include body products, spoiled foods, certain animals, hygiene issues, body envelope violations, death, and visible signs of infection. Disgust is believed to be a component of a behavioural immune system that encourages individuals to avoid people and situations that could result in bodily contamination.

Disgust may have an important role in certain forms of morality. Tybur et al. outline three domains of disgust: pathogen disgust, sexual disgust, and moral disgust.

Research has also found that people who are more sensitive to disgust tend to have more negative attitudes toward other groups and find their own in-group more attractive. Disgust has been linked to prejudice and discrimination, with individuals who are prone to physical disgust also prone to moral disgust.

Disgust has been noted to feature strongly in the public sphere in relation to issues and debates on anatomy, sex, and bioethics.

Disgust sensitivity is not associated with political orientation when measured with an elicitor-unspecific scale

In the study "Is Disgust a 'Conservative' Emotion?" by Julia Elad-Strenger, Jutta Proch, and Thomas Kessler, the authors argue that the differences in disgust sensitivity between conservatives and liberals are context-dependent rather than a stable personality difference. They found that conservatives show higher disgust sensitivity than liberals, but this finding is based on assessments of disgust to specific elicitors. Across five studies, the authors varied specific elicitors of disgust and found that the relationship between political orientation and disgust sensitivity depends on the specific set of elicitors used.

The authors also showed that disgust sensitivity is not associated with political orientation when measured with an elicitor-unspecific scale. This suggests that the differences in disgust sensitivity between conservatives and liberals are not due to stable personality differences but rather depend on the context and specific elicitors used. The findings have broader theoretical implications for understanding the relationship between disgust and political orientation.

Disgust is a component of a behavioural immune system that encourages individuals to avoid people and situations that could be harmful

Disgust is a complex emotion that has been studied extensively by psychologists and sociologists. It is believed to have evolved as a response to offensive foods that may cause harm to the body. The emotion of disgust is associated with a decrease in heart rate and is believed to be a component of a behavioural immune system that encourages individuals to avoid people and situations that could be harmful to them.

Disgust is primarily experienced in relation to the sense of taste and, secondarily, to anything that causes a similar feeling through smell, touch or vision. It is one of the basic emotions of Robert Plutchik's theory of emotions and has been recognised as a universal emotion that is experienced and recognised across multiple cultures.

Elicitors of Disgust

Self-report and behavioural studies have found that elicitors of disgust include:

• Body products (faeces, urine, vomit, sexual fluids, saliva, mucus)
• Spoiled foods
• Animals (rats, fleas, ticks, lice, snakes, cockroaches, worms, flies, spiders, pigeons, frogs)
• Hygiene (visible dirt and "inappropriate" acts, e.g. using an unsterilised surgical instrument)
• Body envelope violations (blood, gore, mutilation)
• Death (dead bodies, organic decay)
• Visible signs of infection

These elicitors are similar in that they can all potentially transmit infections and are the most commonly referenced elicitors of disgust cross-culturally.

The Insula and Disgust

The insula (or insular cortex) is the main neural structure involved in the emotion of disgust. It is activated by unpleasant tastes, smells and the visual recognition of disgust in other organisms. The anterior insula is an olfactory and gustatory centre that controls visceral sensations and the related autonomic responses, while the posterior insula is characterised by connections with auditory, somatosensory and premotor areas.

Disgust and the Brain

Research has found that the anterior insula is necessary for our ability to feel and recognise the emotion of disgust. Both Calder (2000) and Adolphs (2003) showed that lesions on the anterior insula led to deficits in the experience of disgust and in recognising facial expressions of disgust in others. Furthermore, electrical stimulation of the anterior insula during neurosurgery has been found to trigger nausea and uneasiness in the stomach.

Disgust and the "Conservative" Emotion

Extant political-psychological research has identified stable, context-independent differences between conservatives and liberals in a wide range of preferences and psychological processes. One consistent finding is that conservatives show higher disgust sensitivity than liberals. However, this finding is predominantly based on assessments of disgust to specific elicitors, which conflate individuals' sensitivity and propensity to experience disgust with the extent to which they find specific elicitors disgusting.

Across five studies, researchers varied specific elicitors of disgust, showing that the relationship between political orientation and disgust sensitivity depends on the specific set of elicitors used. They also showed that disgust sensitivity is not associated with political orientation when measured with an elicitor-unspecific scale. Taken together, these findings suggest that the differences between conservatives and liberals in disgust sensitivity are context-dependent rather than a stable personality difference.

Disgust and Orderliness

Individuals who experience more disgust also tend to show a higher dispositional preference for order, according to a study published in Cognition and Emotion. This could partly explain the positive relationship between disgust sensitivity and political conservatism. After controlling for age and gender, researchers found that orderliness mediated the relationship between disgust sensitivity and political conservatism. In other words, those who scored higher on measures of orderliness also scored higher on measures of disgust sensitivity, which was associated with the endorsement of conservative beliefs.

Disgust and Moral Judgments

Disgust has been found to play a role in the development and intensification of moral judgments of purity in particular. For example, a vegetarian might feel disgust after seeing another person eat meat because they view vegetarianism as the pure state-of-being. When this state-of-being is violated, the vegetarian feels disgust. Furthermore, disgust appears to be uniquely associated with purity judgments, not with what is just/unjust or what is harmful/caregiving, while other emotions such as fear, anger, and sadness are "unrelated to moral judgments of purity".

Disgust and Political Orientation

In one study, people of differing political persuasions were shown disgusting images in a brain scanner. In conservatives, the basal ganglia and amygdala, among other regions, showed increased activity, while in liberals, other regions of the brain increased in activity. Both groups reported similar conscious reactions to the images. The difference in activity patterns was large: the reaction to a single image could predict a person's political leanings with 95% accuracy.

Disgust and Reappraisal

Disgust plays an important role in conservatives' moral and political judgments, helping to explain why conservatives and liberals differ in their attitudes on issues related to purity. Research has found that disgust has less influence on the political and moral judgments of liberals because they tend to regulate disgust reactions through emotional reappraisal more than conservatives. In one study, liberals condemned a disgusting act less than conservatives, and did so to the extent that they reappraised their initial disgust response.

Disgust is believed to have evolved as a response to offensive foods that may cause harm to the body

Disgust is an emotional response of rejection or revulsion to something potentially contagious or something considered offensive, distasteful or unpleasant. It is one of the basic emotions of Robert Plutchik's theory of emotions and has been studied extensively by Paul Rozin. It is believed to have evolved as a response to offensive foods that may cause harm to the body.

A common example of this is found in human beings who show disgust reactions to mouldy milk or contaminated meat. Disgust appears to be triggered by objects or people who possess attributes that signify disease. For instance, self-report and behavioural studies found that elicitors of disgust include body products such as feces, urine, vomit, sexual fluids, saliva, and mucus; spoiled foods; and animals such as rats, fleas, ticks, lice, snakes, cockroaches, worms, flies, spiders, pigeons and frogs.

Research has continually proven a relationship between disgust and anxiety disorders such as arachnophobia, blood-injection-injury type phobias, and contamination fear-related obsessive-compulsive disorder. Furthermore, people who are more sensitive to disgust tend to find their own in-group more attractive and tend to have more negative attitudes toward other groups.

Taking a further look into hygiene, disgust was the strongest predictor of negative attitudes toward obese individuals. A disgust reaction to obese individuals was also connected with views of moral values.

Tybur et al. outline three domains of disgust: pathogen disgust, which motivates the avoidance of infectious microorganisms; sexual disgust, which motivates the avoidance of dangerous sexual partners and behaviours; and moral disgust, which motivates people to avoid breaking social norms.

Pathogen disgust arises from a desire to survive and, ultimately, a fear of death. It is compared to a "behavioural immune system" that is the 'first line of defence' against potentially deadly agents such as dead bodies, rotting food, and vomit.

Sexual disgust arises from a desire to avoid biologically costly mates and a consideration of the consequences of certain reproductive choices. The two primary considerations are intrinsic quality (e.g. body symmetry, facial attractiveness, etc.) and genetic compatibility (e.g. avoidance of inbreeding such as the incest taboo).

Moral disgust pertains to social transgressions and may include behaviours such as lying, theft, murder, and rape. Unlike the other two domains, moral disgust motivates avoidance of social relationships with norm-violating individuals because those relationships threaten group cohesion.

As mentioned earlier, women experience disgust more prominently than men. This is reflected in a study about dental phobia, with 4.6% of women compared to 2.7% of men finding the dentist disgusting.

The emotion of disgust can be described as serving as an effective mechanism following occurrences of negative social value, provoking repulsion, and a desire for social distance. It can be defined by motivating the avoidance of offensive things, and in the context of a social environment, it can become an instrument of social avoidance.

Disgust is associated with a decrease in heart rate

Disgust is one of the basic human emotions, recognisable across multiple cultures. It is an emotional response of rejection or revulsion to something potentially contagious or something considered offensive, distasteful or unpleasant. Disgust is primarily experienced in relation to the sense of taste, and secondarily to anything that causes a similar feeling by sense of smell, touch or vision.

A study by Rohrmann and Hopp (2008) found that a decrease in heart rate could only be observed as a response to disease-related disgust induction. The researchers showed 100 subjects three films: a neutral film, a film showing an amputation, and a film of a person vomiting. The latter two films are regarded as disease- and food-related disgust stimuli, respectively, representing two superior disgust domains. The cardiovascular reactions of the disease- and food-related disgust stimuli differed in subjective and physiological parameters.

Another study by Duncko and Veale (2016) found that all participants with contamination fears and most patients with blood and injury-related fears experienced a prominent increase in disgust during exposure. These participants also had absent heart rate acceleration during exposure.

The evolutionary significance of disgust

It is believed that the emotion of disgust has evolved as a response to offensive foods that may cause harm to the organism. Disgust appears to be triggered by objects or people who possess attributes that signify disease. It is believed that disgust has evolved as a component of a behavioural immune system in which the body attempts to avoid disease-carrying pathogens in preference to fighting them after they have entered the body.

Types of disgust

Tybur et al. outline three domains of disgust:

• Pathogen disgust, which motivates the avoidance of infectious microorganisms
• Sexual disgust, which motivates the avoidance of dangerous sexual partners and behaviours
• Moral disgust, which motivates people to avoid breaking social norms

Disgust is an effective instrument for reducing motivations for social interaction

Disgust is a powerful emotion that can have a profound impact on social interactions and relationships. It is characterised by a feeling of revulsion or rejection towards something considered offensive, distasteful, or unpleasant. This emotion is believed to have evolved as a protective mechanism against harmful substances and diseases. When something is perceived as disgusting, it often triggers a desire to withdraw and create distance from the source of disgust. This makes disgust an effective instrument for reducing motivations for social interaction and connection.

The experience of disgust is influenced by both biological and cultural factors. On a biological level, disgust is associated with a decrease in heart rate and changes in respiratory behaviour. It is also linked to the activation of specific regions in the brain, particularly the insula. Culturally, different societies may find different things disgusting, but the emotional reaction of disgust remains consistent across cultures.

Research has found a link between disgust sensitivity and political conservatism. Individuals who are more sensitive to disgust tend to show a higher preference for order and traditional norms, which aligns with conservative ideologies. This relationship is context-dependent and influenced by specific elicitors of disgust. However, it is important to note that the association between disgust and conservatism is not universally accepted and has been questioned in some studies.

Disgust can also play a role in moral judgments and social interactions. It is associated with a desire to avoid social relationships with individuals who violate social norms or are perceived as a contamination risk. This can lead to dehumanisation and exclusion of certain groups or individuals. Additionally, disgust can be a motivator for maintaining social order and traditional norms.

In summary, disgust is a complex emotion that serves as a protective mechanism and has far-reaching implications for social interactions and relationships. Its ability to reduce motivations for social interaction can be understood through its evolutionary purpose of avoiding harmful substances and diseases.

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