Ugliness Judgments Alert us to Cues of Pathogen Presence

Abstract

<jats:p> Little is known about the psychology of ugliness. We propose that ugliness judgments are linked to the behavioral immune system, alerting us to objects that may contain potentially harmful diseases. Exploring this possibility, in five studies ( N = 1,552), we found that ugly human faces (Studies 1a and 1b), ugly animals (Study 2), and—to a lesser degree—ugly buildings (Study 2) elicit disgust controlling for other avoidance-motivated emotional responses. Furthermore, the presence (vs. absence) of disease cues were found to elicit ugliness judgments (Studies 3 and 4) suggesting that ugliness judgments respond to cues of pathogen presence. As such, ugliness may activate the behavioral immune system, alerting us to stimuli that pose pathogen risk. </jats:p>

Beyond aesthetic judgment: Beauty increases moral standing

“…Studies 1 and Study 2 found that individuals afford moral standing to beautiful humans and animals through evoked purity intuitions. We also found that people want to protect beautiful humans and animals because of their instrumental value (as well as a negative pathway through sadness in human faces, possibly due to experiencing pity in response to unattractive people; see Klebl et al, 2020). Overall, however, these effects were not explained by mind perception which has been the focus of previous work examining sources of motivation for protecting other people from harm (Gray et al, 2012).…”

“…Therefore, beauty perceptions may lead individuals to attribute moral standing to targets because beauty elicits intuitions of moral purity. This is also indirectly supported by research showing that ugly entities elicit disgust (Klebl et al, 2020)-and as such impurity perceptions-as well as evidence suggesting disgust may reduce the moral standing placed on entities (Oaten et al, 2011). For example, people avoid individuals with facial disfigurement, and this has been found to be mediated by disgust (Park et al, 2013;Ryan et al, 2012).…”

“…As such, we examine whether beauty perceptions increase the moral standing of entities independently of whether they have the capacity to suffer. Furthermore, based on evidence linking beauty perceptions and purity intuitions (Diessner et al, 2013;Klebl et al, 2020), as well as evidence suggesting that purity intuitions increase moral standing attributions (Feinberg & Willer, 2013;Frimer et al, 2015;Haidt & Joseph, 2004;Rottman et al, 2015), we propose that beauty increases moral standing attributions through evoking moral intuitions of purity.…”

“…Griffin & Langlois, 2006). Specifically, the emotion disgust has been shown to be closely linked to ugliness judgments (Klebl et al, 2020) and thus may be a pathway through which ugliness judgments reduce entities' moral standing.…”

“…In order to further explore whether people attribute moral standing to beautiful targets across all domains, in Study 4, we investigated whether individuals also place moral standing on non-organic targets (i.e., buildings) through evoked purity intuitions. Based on previous research that found ugliness judgments are linked to disgust responses even in buildings (Klebl et al, 2020), we hypothesized that purity perceptions may "spill-over" to non-organic entities. Moreover, as people may be more inclined to protect historical buildings, we controlled for perceived age of the building.…”