“May I present you: my disgust!” – Declared disgust sensitivity in the presence of attractive models

Abstract

Disgust sensitivity differs among men and women, and this phenomenon has been observed across numerous cultures. It remains unknown why such sex differences occur, but one of the reasons may relate to differences in self‐presentation. We tested that hypothesis in an experiment comprising 299 participants (49% women) randomly allocated into three groups. Each group completed the Three Domains Disgust Scale (TDDS) and rated how disgusting they found olfactory, visual, gustatory, and tactile disgust elicitors either when a male experimenter was present, a female experimenter was present, or no experimenter was present. We hypothesised that male participants in the female experimenter group would declare decreased levels of disgust sensitivity, and female participants in the male experimenter group would declare increased levels of disgust sensitivity. Results showed that despite sex differences in pathogen and sexual disgust, attractive experimenters did not evoke any differences in declared disgust across groups with one exception–both men and women self‐presented as more sensitive to sexual disgust in the presence of the female experimenter. We discuss our findings in the light of evolutionary and social theories.

Sex differences in pathogen disgust sensitivity: Testing the coalitional hunting and warfare hypothesis.

“…The former relates to body envelope violations, that is, physical injuries to the body, whereas the latter is evoked by perceived threat of potential contagion, a context linked strongly to hand-to-hand, bloody battles or short-distance encounters with wild animals. Nonetheless, the study replicates the sex differences in disgust sensitivity in accordance with previous literature (e.g., Olatunji et al, 2005; Sparks et al, 2018; Stefanczyk et al, 2022), with women being more disgust sensitive than men.…”

“…For instance, cooks and chefs, who are socially responsible for providing food to others, are more sensitive to food-related disgust, as the costs of omitting a food pathogen cue are particularly high for them (Stefanczyk & Zielińska, 2024). Pathogen disgust sensitivity is predicted by several factors, such as political orientation, progesterone concentration, anxiety, religiosity, pathogen level in one’s environment, and sex (Batres & Perrett, 2020; Bressan & Kramer, 2022; Inbar et al, 2012; Stefanczyk et al, 2022; Thorpe et al, 2003; Yu et al, 2022). Among these, the latter two are particularly important in the context of the current study.…”

“…In terms of pathogens’ quantity one encounters on a daily basis, people whose professions demand greater exposure to pathogens are less disgust sensitive (Stefanczyk et al, 2022). Furthermore, changing living conditions to more abundant with pathogens leads to a decrease in disgust sensitivity (Batres & Perrett, 2020).…”

No Support for Two Hypotheses About the Communicative Functions of Displaying Disgust: Evidence From Turkey, Norway, Germany, and Croatia

“…Given these methodological strengths, together with the fact that neither hypothesis received support—and this remained true after controlling for plausible covariates—we think that the most plausible interpretation is that neither hypothesis is correct. In support of this interpretation, a recent high-powered study from an independent laboratory in a different country that included additional controls also did not find reduced disgust displays in the presence of same-sex or opposite-sex others ( Stefanczyk et al, 2022 ). However, in the Limitations section we consider a few other possibilities, including potential flaws in our study design.…”

“…Conducting similar studies in the future with behavioral measures of the dependent variables, including facial expressions, eating behavior, or behaviorally handling contaminants, would thus be valuable. Third, we may have had insufficient power to detect the effect predicted by either the Immunological Display Hypothesis or the Pathogen Risk-Taker Hypothesis, but we consider this interpretation relatively unlikely given the primarily null results reported by both our team and Stefanczyk and colleagues ( 2022 ). Fourth and finally, it is conceivable that our stimuli and/or operationalization of variables affected our results.…”