Disgust

1 Conservatism

To look into: is disgust correlated with political conservatism? I am a priori sceptical because this area of research commenced during the peak of the social psychology replication crisis, but it bears looking into.

• Gut Check: Reappraisal of Disgust Helps Explain Liberal-Conservative Differences on Issues of Purity
• Conservatives React Differently to Disgusting Pictures.

Ruisch et al. (2022):

A large body of research has demonstrated that individuals who are dispositionally more disgust-sensitive tend to be more politically conservative, both in their self-identifications (i.e., symbolic ideology) and issue-positions (i.e., operational ideology) (e.g. Terrizzi, Shook, and McDaniel 2013; Inbar, Pizarro, and Bloom 2009), as well as in their voting habits (Inbar et al. 2012; Shook et al. 2017). This relationship between disgust sensitivity and conservatism tends to be strongest with respect to potential interpersonal contamination. That is, those who are more disgusted by interpersonal infection are most prone to holding conservative attitudes (Inbar et al. 2012).

2 Connection to horror

See technohorror for now.

3 Disease, contagion, xenophobia

I have qualms about this research, but also some interest in it. Seems to start with Faulkner et al. (2004). Still active FWIW.

Zakrzewska et al. (2023):

Using structural equation modelling, we found support for our pre-registered hypotheses: higher BODS levels were associated with more xenophobic attitudes; this relationship was partially explained by perceived dissimilarities of the refugees’ norms regarding hygiene and food preparation, and general attitudes toward immigration. Our results support a theoretical notion of how pathogen avoidance is associated with social attitudes: ‘traditional norms’ often involve behaviours that limit inter-group contact, social mobility and situations that might lead to pathogen exposure

4 References