Disgust sensitivity is primarily associated with purity-based moral judgments.

Abstract

Individual differences in disgust sensitivity are associated with a range of judgments and attitudes related to the moral domain. Some perspectives suggest that the association between disgust sensitivity and moral judgments will be equally strong across all moral domains (i.e., purity, authority, loyalty, care, fairness, and liberty). Other perspectives predict that disgust sensitivity is primarily associated with judgments of specific moral domains (e.g., primarily purity). However, no study has systematically tested if disgust sensitivity is associated with moral judgments of the purity domain specifically, more generally to moral judgments of the binding moral domains, or to moral judgments of all of the moral domains equally. Across 5 studies (total N = 1,104), we find consistent evidence for the notion that disgust sensitivity relates more strongly to moral condemnation of purity-based transgressions (meta-analytic r = .40) than to moral condemnation of transgressions of any of the other domains (range meta-analytic rs: .07–.27). Our findings are in line with predictions from Moral Foundations Theory, which predicts that personality characteristics like disgust sensitivity make people more sensitive to a certain set of moral issues.

From the political here and now to generalizable knowledge.

“…In other work on moral decision making (Wagemans, Brandt, & Zeelenberg, 2017), similar issues were tackled by using a well-validated measure of moral judgment including a wide range of moral judgments. Prior work made it difficult to test if emotions had specific From the Political Here and Now to Generalizable Knowledge 7 relationships with moral judgments in specific moral domains or across many moral domains, because research used unstandardized and ad hoc measures of moral judgments covering limited portions of the moral domain (e.g., Cheng, Ottati, & Price, 2013;Horberg, Oveis, Keltner, & Cohen, 2009).…”

“…Prior work made it difficult to test if emotions had specific From the Political Here and Now to Generalizable Knowledge 7 relationships with moral judgments in specific moral domains or across many moral domains, because research used unstandardized and ad hoc measures of moral judgments covering limited portions of the moral domain (e.g., Cheng, Ottati, & Price, 2013;Horberg, Oveis, Keltner, & Cohen, 2009). By using a validated measure that spanned many moral domains (Clifford, Iyengar, Cabeza, & Sinnott Armstrong, et al, 2015) we were able to test if disgust sensitivity predicted harsher moral judgments across domains or were specific to a particular domain (Wagemans et al, 2017). We found that disgust sensitivity was more strongly related to judgments in the purity domain than any of the other moral domains.…”

“…In the case of political policies, researchers can select policies that have been discussed in mainstream media outlets over the last months. In the case of moral judgments, researchers can select morally relevant scenarios from across the various moral domains (Wagemans et al, 2017) or use scenarios based on participant generated examples of immoral behaviors. All of these strategies can help researchers generate broader samples of stimuli to maximize the chances of generalizability beyond specific sets of stimuli.…”

Ekel und die olfaktorische Referenzstörung

“…So konnten Wagemans et al [2018] Wir vermuten zudem, dass es einen Zusammenhang zwischen den Ekelkonstrukten und der Belastung durch Symptome der ORS gibt, wie es z.B. auch für Krankheitsängste [Schwind et al, 2014] und ein gestörtes Essverhalten [Davey et al, 1998] festgestellt werden konnte.…”

“…Möglicherweise finden sich dysfunktionale Grundannahmen und überhöhte moralische Vorstellungen zu diesen Themen, wie etwa "Nur wenn ich gut rieche und gepflegt bin, kann ich erfolgreich sein" oder "Menschen, die nach Schweiß riechen, sind ungepflegt und asozial". Dies wäre wichtig, weil sozialer Ekel auch bei hohen moralischen Vorstellungen entstehen kann und wenn diese verletzt werden [Wagemans et al, 2018]. Auch in der Studie von Schwind et al [2014] [Davey et al, 1998;Bhikram et al, 2017].…”