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.

As Bradley J. Fikes of the San Diego Union Tribune summarizes the article,

“Those especially fearful of infections and prone to disgust are most likely to oppose immigration by those of a different race or color, according to a study by three political scientists.

This aversion is the result of an evolutionary mechanism that unconsciously steers people away from things that are different and perhaps threatening, the study said. It does so by making those things appear disgusting.

Moreover, the study says people hold conservative views because that defensive mechanism acts especially strongly in them, not because they have rationally adopted those views.”

KJ