COVIDisgust: Language processing through the lens of partisanship.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Cognitive Science
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Disgust is an adaptive emotion influencing disease avoidance.
• Individual differences in disgust sensitivity exist and fluctuate with perceived environmental safety.
• Previous research linked word processing to disgust sensitivity, not word disgust itself.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if media portrayal of COVID-19 dynamically alters disgust and subsequent language processing.
• To examine the roles of political ideology and disgust proneness in these effects.

Main Methods:

• Participants were exposed to COVID-19 news headlines (threat vs. downplayed).
• Experiment 1: Word ratings for disgust and valence (N=83).
• Experiment 2: Lexical decision task (N=86).

Main Results:

• Headline type influenced word ratings but not lexical decisions.
• Political ideology and disgust proneness affected both word ratings and reaction times.
• Liberal participants showed higher disgust after threat downplaying; conservative participants showed higher disgust after threat emphasis.
• Political ideology predicted reaction times more than disgust proneness.

Conclusions:

• Disgust proneness and political ideology dynamically interact with perceived environmental safety, impacting language processing.
• Media framing and political discourse surrounding health crises can modulate public disgust responses.
• Understanding these interactions is crucial for public health communication strategies.