The effect of disgust conditioning and disgust sensitivity on appraisals of moral transgressions

A growing body of research suggests that the experience of disgust increases the severity of moral judgments. In addition, individual difference variables such as Disgust Sensitivity (DS) are associated with differential appraisals of moral transgressions. However, the influence of combined trait and state levels of disgust on judgments of such transgressions has not been fully explored. The present study examined how trait level DS, and state level disgust, induced via evaluative conditioning (EC), affect judgments of moral transgressions. Participants (n = 61) were exposed to a differential EC paradigm where a neutral word (part) was paired with disgusting images (CS+). Participants then provided disgust and morality ratings of moral transgressions that either contained the conditioned word (‘part’) or a neutral word that was not conditioned with disgust (‘some’). Transgressions containing the conditioned disgust elicitor ‘part’ were evaluated as more disgusting, but not more morally wrong than those containing ‘some’. This greater perceived disgust for transgressions containing ‘part’ versus ‘some’ was significantly predicted by disgust conditionability, but not by disgust sensitivity. The implications of these findings to better understand the role of disgust in moral decision-making are discussed.