Ew, That Makes Me Angry: The Converging Social Outcomes of Disgust and Anger (2009)

Undergraduate: Nicholas Miller

Faculty Advisor: Joseph Lowman
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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Social functionalist accounts of emotion posit that emotions coordinate responses to problems and conditions in our social landscape. "Other-condemning" moral emotions, including disgust and anger, are thought to serve integral social functions, allowing individuals to form other-directed attitudes and coordinate appropriate behavioral responses. Though theoretical predictions suggest that socio-moral disgust should produce social outcomes similar to those of physical disgust, prior research does not address the social outcomes of other-directed socio-moral disgust. The current studies seek to identify the social behaviors that result from the experience of disgust and anger. Findings indicate that the experience of socio-moral disgust results in behaviors associated with separation, avoidance, and a motivation to cleanse. Results also suggest that socio-moral disgust may be a more elaborate variant of anger, akin to "anger+."