Neuroscience
People who are sensitive to interpersonal disgust – for example, they dislike sitting on a bus seat left warm by a stranger – are more likely to hold right-wing attitudes and to be racist.
That's according to Gordon Hodson and Kimberly Costello, who say that in the same way that core disgust guards the bodily boundary, interpersonal disgust may serve to guard cultural boundaries, by averting us from people who are not members of our group, and drawing us to those who are.
Hodson and Costello asked 103 English Canadian students questions about their disgust sensitivity, their political orientations, their fear of disease and their attitudes to immigrants and other marginalised groups like foreigners, homosexuals, drug addicts and the poor.
High sensitivity to interpersonal disgust was associated with right-wing authoritarian beliefs, a less-than-human perception of immigrants and negative attitudes to marginalised groups such as the poor. It was also associated with more positive attitudes towards other English Canadians.
Other types of disgust sensitivity, such as aversion to eating monkey meat (core disgust) to touching dead bodies (death-related disgust) and to people watching pornography involving animals (sex-related disgust) were correlated with interpersonal disgust, but did not themselves predict racist or prejudice attitudes once levels of interpersonal disgust were taken into account.
Interpersonal disgust sensitivity – not wanting to wear clean second hand clothes is another example - continued to predict racist attitudes even after fear of disease was taken into account. Hodson and Costello said such sensitivity may “reflect powerful symbolic cultural forces that socialise withdrawal strategies to protect the self from potentially offensive objects, including social groups.”
Hodson told the Digest his lab are testing desensitisation procedures in the hope of reducing prejudice: “If disgust sensitive people are more prejudiced then efforts to reduce disgust sensitivity through systematic desensitisation and related procedures (i.e. presenting participants with basic disgusting stimuli and intergroup disgust stimuli under controlled settings paired with relaxation) should help to reduce prejudice.”
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Hodson, G. & Costello, K. (2007). Interpersonal disgust, ideological orientations, and dehumanisation as predictors of intergroup attitudes. Psychological Science, 18, 691-698.
Link to related Nature feature article. (Subscription required).
Link to related article in The Psychologist magazine. (Open Access).
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
Image credit: Credit: Wellcome Library, London. An expression of disgust. 1872 From: The expression of the emotions in man and animals / By: Charles Darwin Published: J. Murray,London : 1872.
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Neuroscience
People sensitive to disgust are more likely to hold right-wing views
People who are sensitive to interpersonal disgust – for example, they dislike sitting on a bus seat left warm by a stranger – are more likely to hold right-wing attitudes and to be racist.That's according to Gordon Hodson and Kimberly Costello, who say that in the same way that core disgust guards the bodily boundary, interpersonal disgust may serve to guard cultural boundaries, by averting us from people who are not members of our group, and drawing us to those who are.
Hodson and Costello asked 103 English Canadian students questions about their disgust sensitivity, their political orientations, their fear of disease and their attitudes to immigrants and other marginalised groups like foreigners, homosexuals, drug addicts and the poor.
High sensitivity to interpersonal disgust was associated with right-wing authoritarian beliefs, a less-than-human perception of immigrants and negative attitudes to marginalised groups such as the poor. It was also associated with more positive attitudes towards other English Canadians.
Other types of disgust sensitivity, such as aversion to eating monkey meat (core disgust) to touching dead bodies (death-related disgust) and to people watching pornography involving animals (sex-related disgust) were correlated with interpersonal disgust, but did not themselves predict racist or prejudice attitudes once levels of interpersonal disgust were taken into account.
Interpersonal disgust sensitivity – not wanting to wear clean second hand clothes is another example - continued to predict racist attitudes even after fear of disease was taken into account. Hodson and Costello said such sensitivity may “reflect powerful symbolic cultural forces that socialise withdrawal strategies to protect the self from potentially offensive objects, including social groups.”
Hodson told the Digest his lab are testing desensitisation procedures in the hope of reducing prejudice: “If disgust sensitive people are more prejudiced then efforts to reduce disgust sensitivity through systematic desensitisation and related procedures (i.e. presenting participants with basic disgusting stimuli and intergroup disgust stimuli under controlled settings paired with relaxation) should help to reduce prejudice.”
___________________________________
Hodson, G. & Costello, K. (2007). Interpersonal disgust, ideological orientations, and dehumanisation as predictors of intergroup attitudes. Psychological Science, 18, 691-698.
Link to related Nature feature article. (Subscription required).
Link to related article in The Psychologist magazine. (Open Access).
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
Image credit: Credit: Wellcome Library, London. An expression of disgust. 1872 From: The expression of the emotions in man and animals / By: Charles Darwin Published: J. Murray,London : 1872.
- Is Self-disgust The Emotional Trigger That Leads To Self-harm?
To help people who perform non-lethal self-harm, such as cutting and burning themselves, we need a better understanding of the thoughts and feelings that contribute to them resorting to this behaviour. Risk factors are already known, including depression...
- Disgusted People Have Enhanced Ability To Spot Dirt
The cool, calm extravert - that's the emotional profile that our culture puts on a pedestal. Prudes, introverts and scaredy-cats just aren't fashionable. Yet there's mounting psychological research showing that unpopular emotional traits often...
- For Christians, Dawkins And The Qur'an Leave A Bad Taste In The Mouth, Literally
Many studies have shown that moral disgust is "embodied". Contemplation of taboo deeds really does leave people physically sickened. Now Ryan Ritter and Jesse Preston have extended this literature to show that religious beliefs that contradict one's...
- Intervention Helps Reduce Homophobia
A problem with interventions that use role-playing to beat prejudice is that bigots usually aren't motivated to take the perspective of the groups that they discriminate against. In a new study, Gordon Hodson and colleagues have tested the effectiveness...
- Biting On Pen Impairs People's Emotion Recognition
Have you ever noticed how, when two people are talking, they seem to mimic each other's facial expressions? Some psychologists say this is simply a case of emotions being contagious. However, others go further, arguing this mimicry plays a functional...