Disgusting Democrats and Repulsive Republicans: Members of Political Outgroups Are Considered Physically Gross

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Political Psychology

Background:

• The classification of disgust as a sociomoral emotion remains a subject of debate.
• Existing research often conflates physical, moral, and metaphorical disgust, necessitating clearer distinctions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To rigorously investigate whether social stimuli, specifically political outgroup members, can elicit genuine physical disgust.
• To differentiate physical disgust from moral or metaphorical disgust in response to social outgroups.

Main Methods:

• Three preregistered studies involving 915 participants were conducted.
• Stimuli included male faces matched for baseline disgustingness.
• Measures comprised concrete self-report scales and nonverbal facial expression analysis.

Main Results:

• Political outgroup members were perceived as "disgusting" across studies.
• This effect was weaker on concrete self-report measures.
• The effect was absent in nonverbal facial expression measures.

Conclusions:

• Social stimuli can elicit genuine physical disgust, but its expression may be subdued.
• The measured strength of physical disgust responses to social stimuli depends on the employed measurement tools.
• Findings have implications for understanding sociomoral emotions and political dynamics in American politics.