Beyond vernacular: Measurement solutions to the lexical fallacy in disgust research

Armstrong, Thomas J.; Wilbanks, Danica; Leong, Daniel J.; Hsu, Kean J.

doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2021.102408

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 96 publications

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“…This may be problematic as polysemy with disgust is very common and disgust is used to describe different forms of discomfort and disapproval. Future studies should rely less heavily on language and examine children’s understanding of disgust using novel methods in this field, such as eye-tracking (Armstrong et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Along the same lines, Fiske (2020), in his critique of the lexical fallacy in emotion research, suggests that the same emotion’s vernacular word, such as disgust, may be used to refer to different scientific entities (e.g., anger, disgust, and outrage), depending on the context and individuals’ characteristics. These differences may lead to the study of an incoherent construct (Armstrong et al, 2021). On the other hand, the general morality position postulates that disgust is central to moral judgements and can result from a range of different moral violations, from cheating to injustice (Hutcherson & Gross, 2011; Jones & Fitness, 2008; Schnall et al, 2008; Wheatley & Haidt, 2005).…”

Section: Social Domain Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is moral disgust socially learned?

Aznar¹,

Tenenbaum²,

Russell³

2023

Emotion

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The present study examined mother-child talk about disgust. A total of 68 mothers and their 4-, (M age = 55.72 months, SD = 4.13), 6-(M age = 77.70 months, SD = 5.45), and 8-(M age = 100.90 months, SD = 4.61) year-old children discussed four tasks relating to moral and pathogen disgust. Tasks comprised labeling facial expressions of emotions, generating items that would make participants disgusted or angry, identifying moral and pathogen transgressions as either causing anger or disgust, and finally rating the degree to which moral and pathogen transgressions were disgusting and justifying their responses. Mother-child dyads recognized the facial expression of happiness more accurately than that of disgust, but disgust was recognized equally well as expressions of sadness and anger across all age groups. Dyads associated moral transgressions with anger, whereas they associated pathogen transgressions with disgust. Finally, mothers and children and mothers individually rated pathogen transgressions as more disgusting than moral transgressions. Taken together, findings show that moral disgust is understood at a later age and is only used metaphorically, if at all, in children as old as 8 years old.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Social Domain Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Is moral disgust socially learned?

Aznar¹,

Tenenbaum²,

Russell³

2023

Emotion

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“…To test the respective contributions of pathogen and sexual disgust in moral cognition, we rely on disgust sensitivity , a trait-level (individual difference) construct that reflects the frequency and intensity one experiences disgust. This is because (some) measures of disgust sensitivity have confirmed the existence of pathogen and sexual disgust as independent domains of disgust, whereas other types of disgust measures (e.g., facial movements, physiological reactivity, behavioral tasks, and digestive activity; see Armstrong et al, 2021 for a review) have focused on assessing only pathogen disgust.…”

Section: What Is Disgust?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pathogens or promiscuity? Testing two accounts of the relation between disgust sensitivity and binding moral values.

Donner,

Chagas-Bastos,

Jeremiah

et al. 2024

Emotion

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A recurrent observation in the field of moral psychology is that disgust sensitivity is associated with greater moralization of the binding (and particularly sanctity) moral domains. It is generally assumed that these effects are the result of disgust’s role as an emotion that motivates pathogen avoidance (i.e., the pathogen avoidance account), yet alternative disgust-based accounts of moralization, namely those grounded in sexual avoidance (i.e., the promiscuity avoidance account), might also explain these observations. Across two studies (total N = 2,718), involving 10 diverse samples (from Australia, the United States, and Brazil), we found that after controlling for the shared variance of pathogen and sexual disgust, only measures of sexual disgust exhibited a positive (and strong) association with the binding moral foundations. These results argue against the pathogen avoidance account of disgust–binding effects and instead support the promiscuity avoidance account. Above all, this work highlights the utility of delineating the dimensionality of disgust to better characterize the different disgust-based motives underlying moral cognition.

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“…Significant effort has been devoted to measuring disgust. Whilst some research has assessed disgust by focusing on, for example, facial movements, physiological reactivity, behavioral tasks, and digestive activity (for a review, see Armstrong et al, 2021), the vast majority of disgust research comes from examining responses to various self-report measures of disgust sensitivity, a trait-level construct that reflects stable between person variation in the propensity to experience disgust (Olatunji et al, 2007;Tybur et al, 2009). Disgust sensitivity can refer both to reaction intensity and reaction range: someone who is highly disgust sensitive may (a) given a fixed set of elicitors, experience disgust more intensely than someone who is less disgust sensitive, and/or (b) experience disgust (of a given intensity) to a wider range of elicitors than less disgust sensitive individuals.…”

Section: Disgust and Disgust Sensitivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Specificity Versus Generality: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Association Between Trait Disgust Sensitivity and Moral Judgment

et al. 2022

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Disgust seems to play an important role in moral judgment. However, it is unclear whether the role of disgust in moral judgment is limited to certain kinds of moral domains (versus many) and/or certain types of disgust (versus many). To clarify these questions, we conducted a multilevel meta-analysis ( k = 512; N = 72,443) on relations between trait disgust sensitivity and moral judgment (disgust-immorality association). Main analyses revealed a significant overall mean disgust-immorality association ( r = .23). Additionally, moderator analyses revealed significant specificity in disgust type and moral domain (grounded in Moral Foundations Theory): effects were stronger for (a) sexual disgust compared to pathogen disgust, (b) sanctity moral judgments compared to other domains of moral judgments, and (c) sexual-sanctity associations compared to other disgust type-moral domain pairings.

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Beyond vernacular: Measurement solutions to the lexical fallacy in disgust research

Cited by 7 publications

References 96 publications

Is moral disgust socially learned?

Is moral disgust socially learned?

Pathogens or promiscuity? Testing two accounts of the relation between disgust sensitivity and binding moral values.

Specificity Versus Generality: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Association Between Trait Disgust Sensitivity and Moral Judgment

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