Scientists Explore the Link Between Disgust and Political Views—Finding It Complex

Disgust and Politics: What Research Shows

Psychologists have long investigated whether sensitivity to disgust helps explain political beliefs. According to Deutsche Welle, a review of 24 studies indicated that individuals who more easily experience disgust tend to hold more socially conservative views. One approach explains this through evolution: according to psychologist Yoel Inbar from the University of British Columbia in Canada,disgust likely partially evolved to reduce contact with potential sources of disease, and avoiding such sources may also mean missing out on new experiences—hence the division of people into 'cautious' and 'risk-prone' regarding pathogens.

Three Types of Disgust and Different Objects for Liberals and Conservatives

Disgust is not a single emotion. The Three-Domain Disgust Scale, developed in 2009, identifies three types: pathogen-related (reaction to potential infection sources like rotten food, vomit, or waste), sexual (reaction to certain sexual behaviors), and moral (reaction to transgressions such as betrayal or cruelty; scholars debate whether it reflects physical disgust or moral condemnation). The 2020 study titled 'Is Disgust a Conservative Emotion?' demonstratedthat conservatives, typically aligned with the US Republican Party,experience stronger disgust toward examples involving sexual behavior and drug use, while liberals, generally aligned with the Democratic Party,react more strongly to animal abuse and environmental pollution. However, when asked generally about ease of feeling disgust, no clear difference across the political spectrum was found.

Contagion Language in Rhetoric and Debate Over Bodily Reactions

Contamination language appears in political rhetoric: during the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly stated that immigrants 'poison the blood of our country'and referred to himself as a 'mysophobe.' Early studies reportedly showed stronger physical reactions among conservatives to frightening or disgusting images (including changes in sweating), but subsequent research, including a 2020 study by political psychologist Bert Bakker from the University of Amsterdam,struggled to replicate these findings. Meanwhile, survey studies generally found that people with more conservative attitudes report greater ease of feeling disgust. 'If bodily reactions do not differ between political groups, why do feelings differ?' asked Manos Tsakiris from Royal Holloway and the Centre for the Politics of Feelings at the University of London..

New Research: Interoception and the Boundaries of the Connection

Tsakiris and Mariana von Mohr surveyed 632 adult residents of the United States,investigating how much people notice and trust signals from their bodies—a measure termed 'interoceptive sensibility.' It turned out that individuals who feel stronger disgust toward sexual behavior tend to be more conservative regardless of bodily awareness. However, the link between moral disgust and conservatism was found only among those reporting lower bodily awareness. What surprised Tsakiris was that perceived bodily awareness itself was not linked to political views: 'People highly attuned to their bodies were neither more liberal nor more conservative,' he noted. Furthermore, the new study found no significant connection between pathogen-related disgust and conservative views. Inbar, who, along with Joshua Tybur, one of the scale's creators, prefers measuring pathogen-related disgust, explains that questions about sexual disgust may already reflect conservative beliefs: 'It's almost like asking people the same thing twice.' He considers the findings on bodily awareness to be 'at best suggestive' and calls for replication with predefined predictions.

Can Disgust Be Used in Politics and Does It Influence Voting?

Tsakiris suggests that people who find it hard to understand their bodily sensations may be more vulnerable to political messages that explain what those sensations mean — for example, when someone is 'labeled' with an emotion: 'You're angry' or 'You feel disgust at this.' According to him, 'this is exactly how disgust does political work: it turns moral judgments about individual people into judgments about entire groups.' However, the study did not test this directly. Science cannot yet establish whether disgust shapes political beliefs or whether existing beliefs determine what triggers disgust: Bakker notes that political views may influence how people describe themselves, that is, the link may work in both directions. 'Voter behavior is very complex, and citizens form their opinions about politics in complicated ways,' he said. Inbar cautions against exaggeration: the link, although robust, is 'fairly small' and is only one of many influences on a person's politics. Tsakiris, for his part, proposes a 'critical sense' — questioning one's emotional reactions to provocative material, including social media posts, as well as the information itself, and also discussing feelings with others and listening to different points of view.

Why it matters

The topic is relevant against the backdrop of a polarized political climate and the upcoming 2026 US midterm elections: understanding the emotional mechanisms of persuasion affects voters, politicians, and creators of political messages. The practical takeaway from the facts presented is caution about sweeping generalizations: the link between disgust and ideology is itself small and bidirectional, and researchers explicitly warn that emotional labels in rhetoric can transfer moral judgments from individual people to entire groups. At the same time, key questions — the direction of causality and the reliability of the new data on bodily awareness — remain open.