The social, political, and aesthetic implications of disgust

Abstract

This dissertation contributes to the understanding of social, political, and aesthetic implications of disgust. It examines self-other agreement in pathogen, sexual, and moral disgust sensitivity and their independence from broader personality; disentangles two prominent explanations for why pathogen disgust sensitivity relates to anti-immigrant sentiments; explores whether and how disgust sensitivity and other individual differences relate to liking of grotesque art; and examines the heritability of – and genetic associations between – sexual disgust sensitivity, sociosexuality, and condemnation of recreational drug use. The results show that pathogen, sexual, and moral disgust sensitivity are affective traits independent from broader personality and detectable by others at different levels of acquaintanceship; that the relation between pathogen disgust sensitivity and anti-immigrant sentiments is explained by resistance to foreign norms rather than avoidance of novel pathogens; that pathogen disgust sensitivity negatively relates to liking of grotesque art; and that heritability in sexual disgust sensitivity and sociosexuality underlie the condemnation of recreational drug use. These findings illustrate the downstream consequences of the evolutionary pressure of pathogens on diverse social, political, and aesthetic aspects of modern human life.