| Abstract | This paper seeks to build on two fundamental bodies of research pertaining to the emotion of disgust as a behaviorally relevant construct. The first explores the impact of disgust on interpersonal relations, citing evolutionary advantages as the mechanism behind behavioral tendencies such as in-group favoritism and out-group derogation. For example, pathogenic disgust has been found to regulate interpersonal behavior by bolstering negative perceptions of out-groups and strengthening the social ties of one's inner circle. These findings are likely explained by the historical danger posed by foreign pathogens to which the in-group had not yet developed immunity. Thus, there was a natural selection advantage for those who could identify disease-salient stimuli and regulate in-versus out-group behavior accordingly. The second body of research ties these behavioral tendencies to political attitudes. Specifically, previous research suggests a causal link between disgust sensitivity and political conservatism. These findings stand for both chronic disgust sensitivity, as well as temporally primed disease cues. The present study seeks to fill holes in previous research by examining how the emotion of disgust might affect political attitudes towards certain policies. Specifically, I ask how priming for disgust might affect the public's proclivity for military conflict. To do so, I operationalize military conflict proclivity into three dependent variables, each of which has implications for war attitudes. Measures for in-group favoritism, out-group derogation, and attitudes towards military conflict are constructed and compared to a control group receiving no disgust prime. Utilizing a survey experiment with 742 subjects and various methodologies for eliciting disgust, I fail to find a causal connection between disgust and any of the dependent variables. The implications of these findings are discussed, specifically in regard to the validity of previous studies and the role of identity politics in the modern political era. |
