The Behavioral Immune System Shapes Political Intuitions: Why and How Individual Differences in Disgust Sensitivity Underlie Opposition to Immigration | American Political Science Review | Cambridge Core

We present, test, and extend a theoretical framework that connects disgust, a powerful basic human emotion, to political attitudes through psychological mechanisms designed to protect humans from disease. These mechanisms work outside of conscious awareness, and in modern environments, they can motivate individuals to avoid intergroup contact by opposing immigration. We report a meta-analysis of previous tests in the psychological sciences and conduct, for the first time, a series of tests in nationally representative samples collected in the United States and Denmark that integrate the role of disgust and the behavioral immune system into established models of emotional processing and political attitude formation. In doing so, we offer an explanation for why peaceful integration and interaction between ethnic majority and minorities is so hard to achieve.

Aarøe, Lene, Osmundsen, Mathias, and Petersen, Michael B.. 2016. “Distrust as a Disease-Avoidance Strategy: Individual Differences in Disgust Sensitivity Regulate Generalized Social Trust.” Frontiers in Psychology 7: 1038.Google Scholar

Albertson, Bethany, and Gadarian, Shana Kushner. 2015. Anxious Politics: Democratic Citizenship in a Threatening World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Al-Shawaf, Laith, and Lewis, David M. G.. 2013. “Exposed Intestines and Contaminated Cooks: Sex, Stress, and Satiation Predict Disgust Sensitivity.” Personality and Individual Differences 54 (6): 698–702.Google Scholar

Allport, Gordon W. 1954. The Nature of Prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar

Arceneaux, Kevin. 2012. “Cognitive Biases and the Strength of Political Arguments.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (2): 271–85.Google Scholar

Balzer, Amanda, and Jacobs, Carly M. 2011. “Gender and Physiological Effects in Connecting Disgust to Political Preferences.” Social Science Quarterly 92 (5): 1297–313.Google Scholar

Banks, Antoine J., and Valentino, Nicholas A. 2012. “Emotional Substrates of White Racial Attitudes.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (2): 286–97.Google Scholar

Bargh, John A., and Chartrand, Tanya L.. 1999. “The Unbearable Automaticity of Being.” American Psychologist 54 (7): 462–79.Google Scholar

Barkow, J., Cosmides, Leda, and Tooby, John, eds. 1992. The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Bhojani, S., D'Costa, S., and Gupta, A.. 2008. “Hand Hygiene: Simple, Inexpensive and an Effective Tool.” British Journal of Infection Control 9 (5): 15–7.Google Scholar

Brader, Ted. 2006. Campaigning for Hearts and Minds: How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads Work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

Brader, T., and Marcus, George E.. 2013. “Emotions and Political Psychology.” In Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, second edition, eds. Huddy, Leonie, Sears, David, and Levy, Jack. New York: Oxford University Press, 165–204.Google Scholar

Brader, Ted, Valentino, Nicholas A., and Suhay, Elizabeth. 2008. “What Triggers Public Opposition to Immigration? Anxiety, Group Cues, and Immigration Threat.” American Journal of Political Science 52 (4): 959–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Brooks, S. J., Savov, V., Allzén, E., Benedict, C., Fredriksson, R., and Schiöth, H. B.. 2012. “Exposure to Subliminal Arousing Stimuli Induces Robust Activation in the Amygdala, Hippocampus, Anterior Cingulate, Insular Cortex and Primary Visual Cortex: A Systematic Meta-analysis of fMRI Studies.” NeuroImage 59 (3): 2962–73.Google Scholar

Cacioppo, John T., Tassinary, Louis, and Bernston, Gary. 2007. “Psychophysiological Science: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Classic Questions About the Mind.” In Handbook of Psychophysiology, 3rd ed, eds. Cacioppo, John T., Tassinary, Louis, and Bernston, Gary. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1–16.Google Scholar

Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E.. 1960. The American Voter. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.Google Scholar

Cesario, Joseph, Plaks, Jason E., Hagiwara, Nao, Navarrete, Carlos D., and Higgins, E. Tory 2010. “The Ecology of Automaticity: How Situational Contingencies Shape Action Semantics and Social Behavior.” Psychological Science 21 (9): 1311–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

Citrin, Jack, Green, Donald P., Muste, Christopher, and Wong, Cara. 1997. “Public Opinion Towards Immigration Reform: The Role of Economic Motivations.” Journal of Politics 59 (3): 858–81.Google Scholar

Coenders, Marcel, and Scheepers, Peer. 2003. “The Effect of Education on Nationalism and Ethnic Exclusionism: An International Comparison.” Political Psychology 24 (2): 313–43.Google Scholar

Converse, Philip E. 1964. “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics.” In Ideology and its Discontents, ed. David Apter. New York, NY: Free Press, 207–61.Google Scholar

Cottrell, Catherine A., and Neuberg, Steven L.. 2005. “Different Emotional Reactions to Different Groups: A Sociofunctional Threat-Based Approach to Prejudice.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88 (5): 770–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

Curtis, V., de Barra, Micheál, and Aunger, Robert. 2011. “Disgust as an Adaptive System for Disease Avoidance Behaviour.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366 (1563): 389–401.Google Scholar

Duncan, Lesley A., Schaller, Mark, and Park, Justin H.. 2009. “Perceived Vulnerability to Disease: Development and Validation of a 15-Item Self-Report Instrument.” Personality and Individual Differences 47 (6): 541–6.Google Scholar

Espenshade, Thomas J., and Calhoun, Charles A.. 1993. “An Analysis of Public Opinion Toward Undocumented Immigration.” Population Research and Policy Review 12 (3): 189–224.Google Scholar

Espenshade, Thomas J., and Hempstead, Kathrine. 1996. “Contemporary American Attitudes Toward U.S. Immigration.” International Migration Review 30 (2): 535–70.Google Scholar

Faulkner, Jason, Schaller, Mark, Park, Justin H., and Duncan, Lesley A.. 2004. “Evolved Disease Avoidance Mechanisms and Contemporary Xenophobic Attitudes.” Group Processes and Intergroup Relations 7 (4): 333–53.Google Scholar

Feldman, Stanley, and Johnston, Christopher. 2014. “Understanding the Determinants of Political Ideology: Implications of Structural Complexity.” Political Psychology 35 (3): 337–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Fessler, Daniel M., Eng, Serena J., and Navarrete, Carlos D.. 2005. Elevated Disgust Sensitivity in the First Trimester of Pregnancy: Evidence Supporting the Compensatory Prophylaxis Hypothesis. Evolution and Human Behavior 26 (4): 344–51.Google Scholar

Fessler, Daniel M. T., and Navarrete, Carlos D. 2003. ”Meat is Good to Taboo: Dietary Proscriptions as a Product of the Interaction of Psychological Mechanisms and Social Processes.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 3 (1): 1–40.Google Scholar

Fincher, Corey L., and Thornhill, Randy. 2012. “Parasite-Stress Promotes In-Group Assortative Sociality: The Cases of Strong Family Ties and Heightened Religiosity.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 35 (2): 61–79.Google Scholar

Fiske, Susan, Cuddy, Amy J. C., and Glick, Peter. 2007. “Universal Dimensions of Social Cognition: Warmth and Competence.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11 (2): 77–83.Google Scholar

Fowler, James H., and Schreiber, Darren 2008. “Biology, Politics, and the Emerging Science of Human Nature.” Science 322 (5903): 912–4.Google Scholar

Freud, Sigmund. 1915. The Unconscious. S.E., 14. London: Hogarth, 159–204.Google Scholar

Givens, Terri, and Luedtke, Adam 2004. “The Politics of European Union Immigration Policy: Institutions, Salience, and Harmonization.” Policy Studies Journal 32 (1): 145–65.Google Scholar

Gray, Jeffrey. 1987. The Psychology of Fear and Stress. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Green, David. 2016. “The Trump Hypothesis: Testing Immigrant Populations as a Determinant of Violent and Drug-Related Crime in the United States.” Social Science Quarterly 97 (3): 506–24.Google Scholar

Green, Eva G. T., Krings, Franciska, Staerklé, Christian, Bangerter, Adrian, Clémence, Alain, Wagner-Egger, Pascal, and Bornand, Tierry. 2010. “Keeping the Vermin Out: Perceived Disease Threat and Ideological Orientations as Predictors of Exclusionary Immigration Attitudes.” Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 20 (4): 299–316.Google Scholar

Haidt, Jonathan, McCauley, Clark, and Rozin, Paul. 1994. “Individual Differences in Sensitivity to Disgust: A Scale Sampling Seven Domains of Disgust Elicitors.” Personality and Individual Differences 16 (5): 701–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Hainmueller, Jens, and Hiscox, Michael J.. 2007. “Educated Preferences: Explaining Attitudes toward Immigration in Europe.” International Organization 61 (2): 399–442.Google Scholar

Hainmueller, Jens, and Hiscox, Michael J.. 2010. “Attitudes toward Highly Skilled and Low-Skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment.” American Political Science Review 104 (1): 61–84.Google Scholar

Hibbing, John R., Smith, Kevin B., and Alford, John R.. 2014. “Differences in Negativity Bias Underlie Variations in Political Ideology.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (3): 297–307.Google Scholar

Hodson, Gordon, Choma, Becky L., Boisvert, Jacqueline, Hafer, Carolyn L., MacInnis, Cara C., and Costello, Kimberly. 2013. “The Role of Intergroup Disgust in Predicting Negative Outgroup Evaluations.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49 (2): 195–205.Google Scholar

Huang, Julie Y., Sedlovskaya, Alexandra, Ackerman, Joshua M., and Bargh, John A.. 2011. “Immunizing Against Prejudice Effects of Disease Protection on Attitudes Toward Out-Groups.” Psychological Science 22 (12): 1550–6.Google Scholar

Inbar, Yoel, Pizarro, David A., and Bloom, Paul. 2009. “Conservatives are More Easily Disgusted than Liberals.” Cognition and Emotion 23 (4): 714–25.Google Scholar

Inbar, Yoel, Pizarro, David, Iyer, Ravi, and Haidt, Jonathan. 2012. “Disgust Sensitivity, Political Conservatism, and Voting.” Social Psychological and Personality Science 3 (5): 537–44.Google Scholar

Jensen, Carsten, and Petersen, Michael Bang. 2017. “The Deservingness Heuristic and the Politics of Health Care.” American Journal of Political Science 61 (1): 68–83.Google Scholar

Jost, John T., Glaser, Jack, Kruglanski, Arie W., and Sulloway, Frank J.. 2003. “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition.” Psychological Bulletin 129 (3): 339–75.Google Scholar

Jumaa, P. A. 2005. “Hand Hygiene: Simple and Complex.” International Journal of Infectious Diseases 9 (1): 3–14.Google Scholar

Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar

Kam, Cindy D., and Estes, Beth A.. 2016. “Disgust Sensitivity and Public Demand for Protection.” Journal of Politics 78 (2): 481–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Kenrick, Douglas T., Griskevicius, Vladas, Neuberg, Steven L., and Schaller, Mark. 2010. “Renovating the Pyramid of Needs: Contemporary Extensions Built Upon Ancient Foundations.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 5 (3): 292–314.Google Scholar

Key, V. O. 1949. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopff.Google Scholar

Lodge, Milton, and Taber, Charles S.. 2013. The Rationalizing Voter. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Malhotra, Neil, Margalit, Yotam, and Mo, Cecilia H.. 2013. “Economic Explanations for Opposition to Immigration: Distinguishing between Prevalence and Conditional Impact.” American Journal of Political Science 57 (2): 391–410.Google Scholar

Malka, Ariel, Soto, Christopher J., Inzlicht, Michael, and Lelkes, Yphtach. 2014. “Do Needs for Security and Certainty Predict Cultural and Economic Conservatism? A Cross-National Analysis.” Journal Of Personality and Social Psychology 106 (6), 1031–51.Google Scholar

Marcus, George E., Neuman, W. Russell, and MacKuen, Michael. 2000. Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

McDermott, Rose. 2009. “Mutual Interests: The Case for Increasing Dialogue between Political Science and Neuroscience.” Political Research Quarterly 62: 571–83.Google Scholar

McLaren, Lauren. 2001. “Immigration and the New Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion in the European Union.” European Journal of Political Research 39: 81–108.Google Scholar

Mondak, Jeffery J., Hibbing, Matthew V., Canache, Damarys, Seligson, Mitchell A., and Anderson, Mary R.. 2010. “Personality and Civic Engagement: An Integrative Framework for the Study of Trait Effects on Political Behavior.” American Political Science Review 104: 85–110.Google Scholar

Navarrete, Carlos D., and Fessler, Daniel M. T. 2006. “Disease Avoidance and Ethnocentrism: The Effects of Disease Vulnerability and Disgust Sensitivity on Intergroup Attitudes.” Evolution and Human Behavior 27 (4): 270–82.Google Scholar

Oaten, Megan, Stevenson, Richard J., and Case, Trevor I.. 2009. “Disgust as a Disease-Avoidance Mechanism.” Psychological Bulletin 135 (2): 303–21.Google Scholar

Olatunji, Bumni O., Williams, Nathan L., Tolin, David F., Sawchuk, Craig N., Abramowitz, Jonathan S., Lohr, Jeffrey M., and Elwood, Lisa S.. 2007. “The Disgust Scale: Item Analysis, Factor Structure, and Suggestions for Refinement.” Psychological Assessment 19 (3): 281–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

Open Science Collaboration. 2015. “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science.” Science 349 (6251), aac4716.Google Scholar

Oxley, Douglas R., Smith, Kevin B., Alford, John R., Hibbing, Matthew V., Miller, Jennifer L.. 2008. ”Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits.” Science 321: 1667–70.Google Scholar

Park, Justin H., Faulkner, Jason, and Schaller, Mark. 2003. “Evolved Disease-Avoidance Processes and Contemporary Anti-Social Behavior: Prejudicial Attitudes and Avoidance of People with Physical Disabilities.” Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 27 (2): 65–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Park, Justin H., Schaller, Mark, and Crandall, Christian S.. 2007. “Pathogen-Avoidance Mechanisms and the Stigmatization of Obese People.” Evolution and Human Behavior 28 (6): 410–4.Google Scholar

Petersen, Michael B. 2012. “Social Welfare as Small-Scale Help: Evolutionary Psychology and the Deservingness Heuristic.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (1): 1–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

Petersen, Michael B. 2015. ”Evolutionary Political Psychology: On the Origin and Structure of Heuristics and Biases in Politics.” Political Psychology 36 (S1): 45–78.Google Scholar

Pettigrew, Thomas F., and Tropp, Linda R.. 2006. “A Meta-analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90 (5): 751–83.Google Scholar

Pettigrew, Thomas F., Tropp, Linda R., Wagner, Ulrich, and Christ, Oliver. 2011. “Recent Advances in Intergroup Contact Theory.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 35 (3): 271–80.Google Scholar

Reid, Scott A., Zhang, Jinguang, Anderson, Grace L., Gasiorek, Jessica, Bonilla, Douglas, and Peinado, Susana. 2012. “Parasite Primes make Foreign-Accented English Sound More Distant to People who are Disgusted by Pathogens (but not by Sex or Morality).” Evolution and Human Behavior 33 (5): 471–8.Google Scholar

Rozin, Paul, Haidt, Jonathan, and McCauley, Clark R.. 2000. “Disgust.” In Handbook of Emotions, 2nd edition, eds. Lewis, Michael and Haviland-Jones, Jeannette M.. New York: Guilford Press, 637–53.Google Scholar

Ryan, Stephen, Oaten, Megan, Stevenson, Richard J., and Case, Trevor I.. 2012. “Facial Disfigurement is Treated Like an Infectious Disease.” Evolution and Human Behavior 33 (6): 639–46.Google Scholar

Schaller, Mark 2006. “Parasites, Behavioral Defenses, and the Social Psychological Mechanisms Through Which Cultures Are Evoked.” Psychological Inquiry 17 (2): 96–137.Google Scholar

Schaller, Mark, and Duncan, Lesley A.. 2007. “The Behavioral Immune System: Its Evolution and Social Psychological Implications.” In Evolution and The Social Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and Social Cognition, eds. Forgas, Joseph P., Haselton, Martie G., and von Hippel, William. London: Psychology Press, 293–307.Google Scholar

Schaller, Mark, and Neuberg, Steven L.. 2012. “Danger, Disease, and the Nature Prejudice(s).” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 46: 1–54.Google Scholar

Smith, Kevin B., Oxley, Douglas, Hibbing, Matthew V., Alford, John R., and Hibbing, John R.. 2011. “Disgust Sensitivity and The Neurophysiology of Left-Right Political Orientations.” PLOS One 6 (10): e25552.Google Scholar

Sniderman, Paul, Hagendoorn, Louk, and Prior, Markus. 2004. “Predispositional Factors and Situational Triggers: Exclusionary Reactions to Immigrant Minorities.” American Political Science Review 98 (1): 35–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Sniderman, Paul, Petersen, Michael Bang, Slothuus, Rune, and Stubager, Rune. 2014. Paradoxes of Liberal Democracy: Islam, Western Europe and the Danish Cartoon Crisis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar

Sniderman, Paul M., and Hagendoorn, Louk. 2007. When Ways of Life Collide: Multiculturalism and its Discontents in the Netherlands. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar

Stanovich, Keith E., and West, Richard F. 2000. “Individual Differences in Reasoning: Implications for the Rationality Debate.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23: 645–726.Google Scholar

Terrizzi, John A. Jr, Shook, Natalie J., and McDaniel, Michael A.. 2013. “The Behavioral Immune System and Social Conservatism: A Meta-analysis.” Evolution and Human Behavior 34 (2): 99–108.Google Scholar

Treier, Shawn, and Hillygus, Sunshine D.. 2009. “The Nature of Political Ideology in the Contemporary Electorate.” Public Opinion Quarterly 73 (4): 679–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Tomkins, Silvan S., and McCarter, Robert. 1964. “What and Where are the Primary Affects? Some Evidence for a Theory.” Perceptual and Motor Skills 18 (1): 119–58.Google Scholar

Tooby, John, and Cosmides, Leda. 2008. “The Evolutionary Psychology of the Emotions and Their Relationship to Internal Regulatory Variables.” In Lewis, Michael, Haviland-Jones, Jeannette M., Barrett, Lisa Feldman, eds., Handbook of Emotions, 3rd ed. New York: Guilford Press, 114–37.Google Scholar

Tybur, Joshua M., and Lieberman, Debra. 2016. “Human Pathogen Avoidance Adaptations.” Current Opinion in Psychology 7 (February): 6–11.Google Scholar

Tybur, Joshua M., Lieberman, Debra, and Griskevicius, Vladas. 2009. “Microbes, Mating, and Morality: Individual Differences in Three Functional Domains of Disgust.” Personality Processes and Individual Differences 97 (1): 103–22.Google Scholar

Tybur, Joshua M., Lieberman, Debra, Kurzban, Robert, and DeScioli, Peter. 2013. “Disgust: Evolved Function and Structure.” Psychological Review 120 (1), 65–84.Google Scholar

Valentino, Nicholas A., Brader, Ted, Groenendyk, Eric W., Gregorowicz, Krysha, and Hutchings, Vincent L.. 2011. “Election Night's Alright for Fighting: The Role of Emotions in Political Participation.” Journal of Politics 73 (1): 156–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

van Overveld, Mark, de Jong, Peter J., Peters, Madelon L., and Schouten, Erik. 2011. “The Disgust Scale-R: A Valid and Reliable Index to Investigate Separate Disgust Domains?” Personality and Individual Differences 51 (3), 325–30.Google Scholar

Weiner, Bernard. 1995. Judgements of Responsibility: A Foundation for a Theory of Social Conduct. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar

Welch, Susan, Sigelman, Lee, Bledsoe, Timothy, and Combs, Michael. 2001. Race and Place: Race Relations in an American City. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Williams, Robin Murphy Jr.. 1964. Strangers Next Door: Ethnic Relations in American Communities. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar

Wilson, Edward O. 1999. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York : Vintage.Google Scholar

Wright, Matthew, Citrin, Jack, and Wand, Jonathan. 2012. “Alternative Measures of American National Identity: Implications for the Civic-Ethnic Distinction.” Political Psychology 33 (4): 469–82.Google Scholar

Zaller, John. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar