The role of intergroup disgust in predicting negative outgroup evaluations

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Abstract

We introduce intergroup disgust as an individual difference and contextual manipulation. As an individual difference, intergroup disgust sensitivity (ITG-DS) represents affect-laden revulsion toward social outgroups, incorporating beliefs in stigma transfer and social superiority. Study 1 (5 samples, N = 708) validates the ITG-DS scale. Higher ITG-DS scorers demonstrated greater general disgust sensitivity, disease concerns, authoritarian/conservative ideologies, and negative affect. Greater ITG-DS correlated with stronger outgroup threat perceptions and discrimination, and uniquely predicted negative outgroup attitudes beyond well-established prejudice-predictors. Intergroup disgust was experimentally manipulated in Study 2, exposing participants (n = 164) to a travel blog concerning contact with a disgust-evoking (vs. neutral) outgroup. Manipulated disgust generated negative outgroup evaluations through greater threat and anxiety. This mediation effect was moderated: Those higher (vs. lower) in ITG-DS did not experience stronger disgust, threat, or anxiety reactions, but demonstrated stronger translation of aversive reactions (especially outgroup threat) into negative attitudes. Theory development and treatment implications are considered.

Highlights

► Introduce intergroup disgust concept (repulsion toward social outgroups). ► Develop individual difference measure and establish reliability and validity. ► Manipulate group-relevant disgust, determine causal effects, mediators, moderators. ► Intergroup disgust sensitivity moderates disgust reaction-to-attitudes effect.

Introduction

Repulsive. Reviled. Repugnant. Unsavory. These terms characterize negative affective reactions to disgust-eliciting stimuli (e.g., vomit or fecal matter). They can also characterize reactions to other people, not only foreigners, but also members of low-status and marginalized groups. That is, we can readily react to outsiders as “disgusting.” Yet prejudice researchers have only recently systematically contemplated disgust in intergroup relations, focusing instead on anxiety (Gaertner and Dovidio, 1986, Stephan and Stephan, 1985) or fear (Greenberg & Kosloff, 2008). We introduce the implications of intergroup disgust – a negative affective reaction to social outgroups characterized by revulsion. In Study 1 we introduce individual differences in intergroup disgust sensitivity (ITG-DS); in Study 2 we examine effects of manipulated intergroup disgust on negative outgroup evaluations, and whether ITG-DS moderates its impact.

Section snippets

The disgust emotion

Among emotions, disgust is uniquely characterized by repulsion, heralding urgent withdrawal from psychologically offensive stimuli. Disgust is a basic and universal emotion (Rozin et al., 2000, Rozin et al., 2009), linked to “primitive” brain regions signalling danger (Harris & Fiske, 2006). Thus, one central function involves protecting the self, especially the body, from invasive contaminants through the mouth (Curtis and Biran, 2001, Oaten et al., 2009, Rozin et al., 2009). Yet we use

Evolutionary approaches to disgust-prejudice relations

Humans have progressively adapted and passed on strategies for dealing with concrete problems associated with our complex social lives (see Kurzban & Leary, 2001). Disgust functionally protects us from others bearing marks of contamination and disease risk. Thus we not only avoid diseases but disease-carrying vessels (i.e., other people). The stakes can be high, with the transmission of foreign diseases being potentially devastating. Consider that, being more resistant to animal-borne diseases

Abstract-ideation and disgust

Taking a different approach, Rozin and colleagues (e.g., Rozin and Fallon, 1987, Rozin et al., 1994, Rozin et al., 2000, Rozin et al., 2009) first studied the psychological properties of disgust before inferring its social functions, reaching two important conclusions. First, the law of similarity proposes that if a stimulus appears disgusting, it is disgusting. For example, people are disgusted by consuming apple juice from new bed pans, or chocolate shaped as excrement. That is, superficial

Intergroup disgust

The evolutionary and abstract-ideational approaches to disgust each consider disgust a protective emotion that initiates withdrawal responses to avoid contamination. Drawing from these approaches, we develop the notion of intergroup disgust as an overlooked contributor to negative outgroup attitudes, both as individual difference and as an induced state. We also draw on theory concerning intergroup anxiety: Although people can experience generalized anxiety, intergroup anxiety (feeling awkward,

Study 1: Individual differences in intergroup disgust sensitivity across 5 samples

People vary in general disgust sensitivity (Haidt et al., 1994, Olatunji et al., 2008), with some people being more squeamish about eating odd foods, touching dirty surfaces, etc., in ways relevant to prejudice. For instance, those higher in generalized disgust sensitivity demonstrate greater ingroup (vs. outgroup) attraction (Hodson and Costello, 2007, Navarrete and Fessler, 2006). Heightened disgust sensitivity predicts greater automatic, implicit anti-gay biases (Inbar, Pizarro, Knobe, &

ITG-DS scale

From the 11 items commonly administered to each sample, 8 best captured ITG-DS in terms of theoretical content and inter-relation. These 8 items were subjected to an exploratory Principal Axis Factor (PAF) analysis in PASW 18.0, and a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) in Amos 18.0 (Samples 1 and 2 were pooled for the PAF, N = 366; Samples 3–5 were pooled for the CFA, N = 342). The PAF generated an eigenvalue of 3.09. Another emerged (1.04) but attempts to extract a second factor were unsuccessful,

Study 2: Impact of manipulated disgust on negative outgroup attitudes

In Study 2 we experimentally induced intergroup disgust reactions concerning a fictitious outgroup. Central to our interests were: (a) experimentally demonstrating a causal effect of manipulated intergroup disgust on negative outgroup attitudes; and (b) providing insights into the psychological mechanisms explaining why disgust negatively impacts attitudes. We considered perceptions of group threat and outgroup anxiety as mediators, two well-documented prejudice predictors (see meta-analysis by

General discussion

Despite being a basic emotion, disgust was largely ignored by 20th century researchers (Rozin et al., 2009), and is now touted as the emotion of study for the 21st century (Power & Dalgleish, 1997). Models of intergroup relations increasingly incorporate disgust (e.g., Harris and Fiske, 2006, Smith, 1993), particularly those with evolutionary foci (e.g., Navarrete and Fessler, 2006, Schaller and Park, 2011). Research on whether disgust sensitivity predicts prejudice has proven promising (Hodson

Conclusion

Disgust concerns many elements central to intergroup life: Revulsion, withdrawal, contamination, offensiveness, purity, and boundary-enforcement. Put simply, disgust is about contact threat – concern of an unwilling change in an entity's properties (e.g., self, ingroup) through contact – both physical and symbolic. Participants higher in ITG-DS were more averse to germs and concerned with disease contamination, but were also more authoritarian, socially dominant, and politically conservative (

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    Supported by Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada grants to first (410-2007-2133) and fourth (410-2006-2249) authors.

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