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Updated: May 31, 2026

Testing for Odor Discrimination and Habituation in Mice
Published on: May 5, 2015
Disgusting smells cause decreased liking of gay men
Yoel Inbar1, David A Pizarro, Paul Bloom
1Department of Social Psychology, Tilburg University, the Netherlands. yinbar@uvt.nl
Abstract:
An induction of disgust can lead to more negative attitudes toward an entire social group: Participants who were exposed to a noxious ambient odor reported less warmth toward gay men. This effect of disgust was equally strong for political liberals and conservatives, and was specific to attitudes toward gay men-there was only a weak effect of disgust on people's warmth toward lesbians, and no consistent effect on attitudes toward African Americans, the elderly, or a range of political issues.
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