Can immorality be contracted? Appraisals of moral disgust and contamination fear

Abstract

While extant research underlines the role of disgust in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with contamination fear, less research attention has been devoted to moral disgust. This study endeavored to examine the types of appraisals that are elicited by moral disgust in comparison to core disgust, and to examine their associations with both contact and mental contamination symptoms. In a within-participants design, 148 undergraduate students were exposed to core disgust, moral disgust, and anxiety control elicitors via vignettes, and provided appraisal ratings of sympathetic magic, thought-action fusion and mental contamination, as well as compulsive urges. Measures of both contact and mental contamination symptoms were administered. Mixed modeling analyses indicated that core disgust and moral disgust elicitors both provoked greater appraisals of sympathetic magic and compulsive urges than anxiety control elicitors. Further, moral disgust elicitors elicited greater thought-action fusion and mental contamination appraisals than all other elicitors. Overall, these effects were greater in those with higher contamination fear. This study demonstrates how a range of contagion beliefs are evoked by the presence of 'moral contaminants', and that such beliefs are positively associated with contamination concerns. These results shed light on moral disgust as an important target in the treatment of contamination fear.

Keywords: Contamination fear; Mental contamination; Moral disgust; Obsessive-compulsive disorder.