The Role of Disgust in Homosexuality Judgments

There is a continuing debate on whether emotions underlie moral judgments. Recent studies have shown that emotions, and particularly disgust, play an important role in moral judgments.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of induced disgust on implicit and explicit judgments of homosexuality and to examine the relationship between those judgments and disgust sensitivity.

Sixty-four college students were presented with a neutral or disgust inducing slideshow and a scenario describing homosexual or heterosexual couples French kissing in public. Implicit and explicit disapproval of public French kissing was measured along with disgust sensitivity.

The findings revealed that participants in the induced disgust condition showed greater implicit, but not explicit, disapproval of both homosexual and heterosexual public French kissing, compared to those in the neutral conditions. Homosexual public French kissing was implicitly judged more harshly than heterosexual public French kissing. With regard to disgust sensitivity, results revealed its contribution to implicit judgements.

Present findings add to the existing literature by showing that disgust plays a role in the formation of implicit judgments of sexual behavior. Theoretical considerations accounting for the role of disgust in relation to the intentionality of moral actions are discussed.