How do People Perceive the Cleanliness and Morality of Someone who Expresses Inappropriate Disgust: Showing either too much or too little disgust is perceived to be immoral

Consequences of Agreement versus Disagreement on Physical Disgust: How do People Perceive the Cleanliness and Morality of Someone who Expresses Inappropriate Disgust. Maayan Katzir  Matan Hoffman  Nira Liberman. European Journal of Social Psychology, September 13 2019, https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2631

Abstract: We examined how people perceived a person who expressed inappropriate physical disgust – a person who was either under‐disgusted by physically disgusting stimuli or over‐disgusted by neutral stimuli. Participants formed an impression of a target after receiving information on how s/he rated disgusting (Studies 1, 2) or neutral (Studies 2, 3) pictures, and disgusting or angering scenarios (Study 4). Studies 1, 2 and 4 found that a target person who failed to experience disgust was seen as disgusting, immoral (but only to the extent that s/he was also seen unclean), and not socially desirable. A target who rated neutral stimuli as disgusting was not judged as disgusting but was nevertheless judged as immoral and not socially desirable (Studies 2, 3). Our results show that a target whose judgments of physical disgust deviate from one's own by showing either too much or too little disgust is perceived to be immoral.