Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Disgust, Prejudice, and Stigma

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Handbook of Disgust Research

Abstract

Prejudice is a significant social issue, perpetrated and experienced by many people around the world. In its most benign form, prejudice is merely a heuristic used to conserve mental energy; at its worst, prejudice can lead to biased treatment of individuals or groups, unfair social and political structures, and various forms of abuse, oppression, and violence. Researchers seeking to understand the root causes of prejudice have long considered the role that emotions play in prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behaviours. In this chapter, we specifically focus on the role that disgust plays in prejudice. We first describe some prominent theoretical frameworks for understanding the role of emotions in intergroup relations and prejudice. We then provide evidence for the connection between disgust and prejudice, followed by a discussion of some mechanisms underlying this connection. Finally, we highlight some unanswered questions and areas of future exploration.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Aarøe, L., Petersen, M., & Arceneaux, K. (2017). The behavioral immune system shapes political intuitions: Why and how individual differences in disgust sensitivity underlie opposition to immigration. American Political Science Review, 111, 277-294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beames, J. R., Black, M. J., & Vartanian, L. R. (2016). Prejudice toward individuals with obesity: Evidence for a pro-effort bias. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 22, 184-195.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Buckels, E. E., & Trapnell, P. D. (2013). Disgust facilitates outgroup dehumanization. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 16, 771-780.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Calder, A., Keane, J., Manes, F., Antoun, N., & Young, A. (2000). Impaired recognition and experience of disgust following brain injury. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 1077-1078.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Calder, A., Lawrence, A., & Young, A. (2001). Neuropsychology of fear and loathing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2, 352-363.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chapman, H. A., Kim, D. A., Susskind, J. M., & Anderson, A. K. (2009). In bad taste: Evidence for the oral origins of moral disgust. Science, 323, 1222-1226.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Choma, B., Hodson, G., & Costello, K. (2012). Intergroup disgust sensitivity as a predictor of islamophobia: The modulating effect of fear. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 499-506.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Costello, K., & Hodson, G. (2010). Exploring the roots of dehumanization: The role of animal—human similarity in promoting immigrant humanization. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 13, 3-22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cottrell, C. A., & Neuberg, S. L. (2005). Different emotional reactions to different groups: A sociofunctional threat-based approach to ‘prejudice’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 770–789.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cottrell, C. A., Richards, D. A., & Nichols, A. L. (2010). Predicting policy attitudes from general prejudice versus specific intergroup emotions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 247-254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crawford, J., Inbar, Y., & Maloney, V. (2014). Disgust sensitivity selectively predicts attitudes toward groups that threaten (or uphold) traditional sexual morality. Personality and Individual Differences, 70, 218-223.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crisp, R. J., & Turner, R. N. (2009). Can imagined interactions produce positive perceptions? Reducing prejudice through simulated social contact. American Psychologist, 64, 231–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham, E., Forestell, C., & Dickter, C. (2013). Induced disgust affects implicit and explicit responses toward gay men and lesbians. European Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 362-369.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dalsklev, M., & Kunst, J. R. (2015). The effect of disgust-eliciting media portrayals on outgroup dehumanization and support of deportation in a Norwegian sample. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 47, 28-40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Daníelsdóttir, S., O’Brien, K. S., & Ciao, A. (2010). Anti-fat prejudice reduction: A review of published studies. Obesity Facts, 3, 47–58.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Dasgupta, N., DeSteno, D., Williams, L. A., & Hunsinger, M. (2009). Fanning the flames of prejudice: The influence of specific incidental emotions on implicit prejudice. Emotion, 9, 585-591.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Esses, V. M., Medianu, S., & Lawson, A. S. (2013). Uncertainty, threat, and the role of the media in promoting the dehumanization of immigrants and refugees. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 518-536.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Faulkner, J., Schaller, M., Park, J., & Duncan, L. (2004). Evolved disease-avoidance mechanisms and contemporary xenophobic attitudes. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 7, 333-353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fiske, S. T. (2009). From dehumanization and objectification, to rehumanization: Neuroimaging studies on the building blocks of empathy. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1167, 31-34.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. C., Glick, P., & Xu, J. (2002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth follow from perceived status and competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 878–902.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Giner-Sorolla, R., Bosson, J. K., Caswell, T. A., & Hettinger, V. E. (2012). Emotions in sexual morality: Testing the separate elicitors of anger and disgust. Cognition & Emotion, 26, 1208-1222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, A. (2014). The psychological mechanisms of oppression: Empathy, disgust, and the perception of group membership. Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal, 7, 38-47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, L. T., & Fiske, S. T. (2006). Dehumanizing the lowest of the low: Neuroimaging responses to extreme out-groups. Psychological Science, 17, 847-853.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, L. T., & Fiske, S. T. (2007). Social groups that elicit disgust are differentially processed in mPFC. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2, 45-51.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, L. T., & Fiske, S. T. (2011). Dehumanized perception: A psychological means to facilitate atrocities, torture, and genocide? Zeitschrift für Psychologie/Journal of Psychology, 219, 175–181.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, L. T., Todorov, A., & Fiske, S. T. (2005). Attributions on the brain: neuro-imaging dispositional inferences, beyond theory of mind. Neuroimage, 28, 763-769.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hodson, G., & Costello, K. (2007). Interpersonal disgust, ideological orientations, and dehumanization as predictors of intergroup attitudes. Psychological Science, 18, 691-698.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Huang, J. Y., Sedlovskaya, A., Ackerman, J. M., & Bargh, J. A. (2011). Immunizing against prejudice: Effects of disease protection on attitudes toward out-groups. Psychological Science, 22, 1550-1556.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hutcherson, C. A., & Gross, J. J. (2011). The moral emotions: A social-functionalist account of anger, disgust, and contempt. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 719–737.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D., Knobe, J., & Bloom, P. (2009). Disgust sensitivity predicts intuitive disapproval of gays. Emotion, 9, 435-439.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D., & Bloom, P. (2012). Disgusting smells cause decreased liking of gay men. Emotion, 12, 23-27.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kenrick, A., Shapiro, J., & Neuberg, S. (2013). Do parental bonds break anti-fat stereotyping? Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4, 721-729.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krendl, A. C., Macrae, N. C., Kelley, W. M., Fugelsang, J. A., & Heatherton, T. F. (2006). The good, the bad, and the ugly: An fMRI investigation of the functional anatomic correlates of stigma. Social Neuroscience, 1, 5–15.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lieberman, D., Tybur, J., & Latner, J. (2011). Disgust sensitivity, obesity stigma, and gender: Contamination psychology predicts weight bias for women, not men. Obesity, 20, 1803-1814.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Macrae, C. N., Bodenhausen, G. V., Milne, A. B., & Jetten, J. (1994). Out of mind but back in sight: Stereotypes on the rebound. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 808–817.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, S. R., & Shapiro, J. R. (2018). When “scurry” vs. “hurry” makes the difference: Vermin metaphors, disgust, and anti-immigrant attitudes. Journal of Social Issues, 74, 774-789.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matthews, M., & Levin, S. (2012). Testing a dual process model of prejudice: Assessment of group threat perceptions and emotions. Motivation and Emotion, 36, 564-574.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray, D. R., & Schaller, M. (2016). The behavioral immune system: Implications for social cognition, social interaction, and social influence. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 53, 75-129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Navarrete, C., & Fessler, D. (2006). Disease avoidance and ethnocentrism: The effects of disease vulnerability and disgust sensitivity on intergroup attitudes. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27, 270-282.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Navarrete, C. D., Fessler, D. M., & Eng, S. J. (2007). Elevated ethnocentrism in the first trimester of pregnancy. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 60-65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Handley, B., Blair, K., & Hoskin, R. (2017). What do two men kissing and a bucket of maggots have in common? Heterosexual men’s indistinguishable salivary α-amylase responses to photos of two men kissing and disgusting images. Psychology & Sexuality, 8, 173-188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olatunji, B., Haidt, J., McKay, D., & David, B. (2008). Core, animal reminder, and contamination disgust: Three kinds of disgust with distinct personality, behavioral, physiological, and clinical correlates. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 1243-1259.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oosterhoff, B., Shook, N. J., & Ford, C. (2018). Is that disgust I see? Political ideology and biased visual attention. Behavioural Brain Research, 336, 227-235.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Park, J. H., Faulkner, J., & Schaller, M. (2003). Evolved disease-avoidance processes and contemporary anti-social behavior: Prejudicial attitudes and avoidance of people with physical disabilities. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 27, 65-87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Park, J., Schaller, M., & Crandall, C. (2007). Pathogen-avoidance mechanisms and the stigmatization of obese people. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 410-414.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 751–783.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, M., Young, A., Senior, C., Brammer, M., Andrew, C., Calder, A. J., Bullmore, E. T., Perrett, D. I., Rowland, D., Williams, S. C., Gray, J. A., & David, A. S. (1997). A specific neural substrate for perceiving facial expressions of disgust. Nature, 389, 495-498.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Proctor, G. B., & Carpenter, G. H. (2007). Regulation of salivary gland function by autonomic nerves. Autonomic Neuroscience: Basis and Clinical, 133, 3–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rozin, P., Lowery, L., Imada, S., & Haidt, J. (1999). The CAD triad hypothesis: A mapping between three moral emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes (community, autonomy, divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 574–586.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schaller, M. (2011). The behavioural immune system and the psychology of human sociality. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366, 3418-3426.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schaller, M., & Neuberg, S. L. (2008). Intergroup prejudices and intergroup conflicts. In C. Crawford & D. Krebs (Eds.), Foundations of evolutionary psychology (pp. 401–414). Taylor & Francis Group/Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schienle, A., Schäfer, A., Stark, R., Walter, B., & Vaitl, D. (2005). Gender differences in the processing of disgust-and fear-inducing pictures: An fMRI study. Neuroreport, 16, 277-280.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Seger, C. R., Banerji, I., Park, S. H., Smith, E. R., & Mackie, D. M. (2017). Specific emotions as mediators of the effect of intergroup contact on prejudice: Findings across multiple participant and target groups. Cognition and Emotion, 31, 923-936.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Shook, N. J., Terrizzi Jr, J. A., Clay, R., & Oosterhoff, B. (2015). In defense of pathogen disgust and disease avoidance: A response to Tybur et al. (2015). Evolution and Human Behavior, 36, 498-502.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tapias, M., Glaser, J., Keltner, D., Vasquez, K., & Wickens, T. (2007). Emotion and prejudice: Specific emotions toward outgroups. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 10, 27-39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tassinary, L. G., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1992). Unobservable facial actions and emotion. Psychological Science, 3, 28-33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Terrizzi, J. A., Jr., Shook, N. J., & Ventis, W. L. (2010). Disgust: A predictor of social conservatism and prejudicial attitudes toward homosexuals. Personality and Individual Differences, 49, 587–592.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turner, R. N., Hewstone, M., Voci, A., & Vonofakou, C. (2008). A test of the extended intergroup contact hypothesis: The mediating role of intergroup anxiety, perceived ingroup and outgroup norms, and inclusion of the outgroup in the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 843-860.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tybur, J. M., & Lieberman, D. (2016). Human pathogen avoidance adaptations. Current Opinion in Psychology, 7, 6-11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tybur, J. M., Lieberman, D., & Griskevicius, V. (2009). Microbes, mating, and morality: individual differences in three functional domains of disgust. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 103-122.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Vanman, E. J., Paul, B. Y., Ito, T. A., & Miller, N. (1997). The modern face of prejudice and structural features that moderate the effect of cooperation on affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 941-959.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Vartanian, L. R. (2010). Disgust and perceived control in attitudes toward obese people. International Journal of Obesity, 34, 1302-1307.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Vartanian, L. R., Thomas, M. A., & Vanman, E. J. (2013). Disgust, contempt, and anger and the stereotypes of obese people. Eating and Weight Disorders, 18, 377-382.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Vartanian, L. R., Trewartha, T., & Vanman, E. J. (2016). Disgust predicts prejudice and discrimination toward individuals with obesity. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 46, 369-375.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vartanian, L. R., Trewartha, T., Beames, J. R., Azevedo, S. M., & Vanman, E. J. (2018). Physiological and self-reported disgust reactions to obesity. Cognition and Emotion, 32, 579-592.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Warnock, A. (2019). The dehumanization of immigrants and refugees: A comparison of dehumanizing rhetoric by all candidates in three U.S. presidential elections. Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research, 9, 49-59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weiner, B., Perry, R. P., & Magnusson, J. (1988). An attributional analysis of reactions to stigmas. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 738–748.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wirtz, C., van der Pligt, J., & Doosje, B. (2016). Derogating obese individuals: The role of blame, contempt, and disgust. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 46, 216-228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wright, P., He, G., Shapira, N., Goodman, W., & Liu, Y. (2004). Disgust and the insula: fMRI responses to pictures of mutilation and contamination. Neuroreport, 15, 2347-2351.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Lenny R. Vartanian, Tayla B. McCutcheon & Sarah A. Rubenstein

Authors
  1. Lenny R. Vartanian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Tayla B. McCutcheon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Sarah A. Rubenstein
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lenny R. Vartanian .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Philip A. Powell

  2. Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Nathan S. Consedine

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Vartanian, L.R., McCutcheon, T.B., Rubenstein, S.A. (2021). Disgust, Prejudice, and Stigma. In: Powell, P.A., Consedine, N.S. (eds) The Handbook of Disgust Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84486-8_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation