When a person states that s/he is disgusted by an outgroup, what can we conclude about his/her attitudes, beliefs, and character? Based on an analysis of physical disgust, we predicted that expressing disgust toward a social group would convey a belief that this group possesses a negative essence; namely, that it has a biological basis, and clear boundaries, and that its members share immutable, inherent characteristics. Because being disgusting violates the moral foundation of purity, we also predicted that expressing disgust toward a social group would convey moral condemnation of that group. In three studies, we found that an expression of disgust (vs. anger, hate) toward homosexuals (Studies 1 and 3) and Arabs (Study 2) was perceived as conveying a negative and essentializing attitude toward that group and a perception of this group as impure and immoral. Expressions of disgust conveyed a more avoidant yet less violent and a less prejudiced (and therefore more legitimate) attitude than expressions of hate. Similar results were obtained in Study 4, in which beliefs were expressed toward unidentified social groups and participants had to indicate which emotions accompany that belief. (PsycINFO Database Record

We examined how people perceived a person who expressed inappropriate physical disgust—a person who was either under‐disgusted by physically disgusting stimuli or over‐disgusted by neutral stimuli. Participants formed an impression of a target after receiving information on how s/he rated disgusting (Studies 1, 2) or neutral (Studies 2, 3) pictures, and disgusting or angering scenarios (Study 4). Studies 1, 2 and 4 found that a target person who failed to experience disgust was seen as disgusting, immoral (but only to the extent that s/he was also seen unclean), and not socially desirable. A target who rated neutral stimuli as disgusting was not judged as disgusting but was nevertheless judged as immoral and not socially desirable (Studies 2, 3). Our results show that a target whose judgments of physical disgust deviate from one's own by showing either too much or too little disgust is perceived to be immoral.