Disgust sensitivity predicts intuitive disapproval of gays
Open accessAbstract
Two studies demonstrate that a dispositional proneness to disgust ("disgust sensitivity") is associated with intuitive disapproval of gay people. Study 1 was based on previous research showing that people are more likely to describe a behavior as intentional when they see it as morally wrong (see Knobe, 2006, for a review). As predicted, the more disgust sensitive participants were, the more likely they were to describe an agent whose behavior had the side effect of causing gay men to kiss in public as having intentionally encouraged gay men to kiss publicly-even though most participants did not explicitly think it wrong to encourage gay men to kiss in public. No such effect occurred when subjects were asked about heterosexual kissing. Study 2 used the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2006) as a dependent measure. The more disgust sensitive participants were, the more they showed unfavorable automatic associations with gay people as opposed to heterosexuals. Two studies demonstrate that a dispositional proneness to disgust ("disgust sensitivity") is associated with intuitive disapproval of gay people. Study 1 was based on previous research showing that people are more likely to describe a behavior as intentional when they see it as morally wrong (see Knobe, 2006, for a review). As predicted, the more disgust sensitive participants were, the more likely they were to describe an agent whose behavior had the side effect of causing gay men to kiss in public as having intentionally encouraged gay men to kiss publicly-even though most participants did not explicitly think it wrong to encourage gay men to kiss in public. No such effect occurred when subjects were asked about heterosexual kissing. Study 2 used the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2006) as a dependent measure. The more disgust sensitive participants were, the more they showed unfavorable automatic associations with gay people as opposed to heterosexuals.
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Specific emotions are elicited when a particular group is seen to pose a threat to the social and sexual order.
“Specific emotions are elicited when a particular group is seen to pose a threat to the social and sexual order (Hodson and Costello, 2007; Inbar et al., 2009).”
From “Real men in the battlefield”: a hybrid AI–discourse analysis of online homophobia and transphobia (2026) · cites this paper as Inbar et al., 2009
The emotion of disgust has been found especially relevant to prejudice toward lesbians and gay men.
“However, the emotion of disgust has been found especially relevant to prejudice toward lesbians and gay men (Haidt and Hersh, 2001; Inbar et al., 2009; Terrizzi et al., 2010).”
From “Real men in the battlefield”: a hybrid AI–discourse analysis of online homophobia and transphobia (2026) · cites this paper as Inbar et al., 2009
For the Inbar et al. (2009) study, the GPT sample found actions were seen as less intentional for homosexual kissing than for heterosexual kissing, and did not replicate either the original or Many Labs 2 result.
“Actions are seen as less intentional for homosexual kissing than of heterosexual kissing”
From Diminished diversity-of-thought in a standard large language model (2024) · cites this paper as Inbar et al., 2009
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- Authors
- Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D. A., Knobe, J., & Bloom, P.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- Yale University (US)
- Venue
- Emotion
- Published
- 2009
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 435-439
- ISSN
- 1528-3542 (ISSN-L)
- 1931-1516
- OpenAlex
- W2111033106
- Cited by
- 466
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 37 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 36 · 2016: 28 · 2015: 36 · 2014: 48 · 2013: 34 · 2012: 28
- FWCI
- 11.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- philarchive.org
- Locations
- Emotion (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy
- Keywords
- disgust sensitivity, moral judgment, intentional attribution, automatic associations, Implicit Association Test
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Attitude, Emotions, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Love, Male, Morals, Surveys and Questionnaires, Risk-Taking, Social Desirability, Homosexuality, Male, Homosexuality, Female, Intuition, Heterosexuality
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