Julie and Mark Revisited: Sexual Arousal, Disgust, Moral Disapproval

The Curious Tale of Julie and Mark Revisited: Does Sexual Arousal Inhibit Disgust and Moral Disapproval? A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in Psychology. 2020 Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. vi List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vii Literature Review................................................................................................................ 1 What is Disgust? ............................................................................................................. 1 Cultural Dependency of Disgusting Stimuli ................................................................... 1 Universality of the Emotion of Disgust .......................................................................... 2 Development of Disgust as a Sensation and an Emotion ............................................... 3 What Are the Widely Held Domains of Disgusting Stimuli?......................................... 4 Rozin, Haidt, and McCauley (RHM) Model of Disgust............................................... 5 Tybur, Lieberman, Kurzban, and DeScioli Model of Disgust: The Three Domains ... 7 Components of Sexual Arousal ...................................................................................... 9 Moral Disapproval and Disgust Sensitivity .................................................................. 11 In-Group Formation Within Socially Conservative Individuals................................... 12 Social Conservatism: Influences of In-Group Beliefs on Behaviors Towards OutGroup ............................................................................................................................ 14 Emotional Primacy of Disgust in Moral Judgment....................................................... 15 Current Study ................................................................................................................ 16 Methods............................................................................................................................. 17 Participants.................................................................................................................... 17 Measures ....................................................................................................................... 18 Level of Sexual Arousal ............................................................................................. 18 Level of Core Disgust ................................................................................................ 19 Level of Moral Disapproval ...................................................................................... 19 Level of Social Conservatism .................................................................................... 20 Disgust Sensitivity...................................................................................................... 20 Materials ....................................................................................................................... 21 Video Clips ................................................................................................................ 21 Procedure ...................................................................................................................... 21 Results............................................................................................................................... 23 Part One: Efficacy of Sexual Arousal Induction on Inhibiting Core Disgust and Moral Disapproval in Response to the Incest Vignette ........................................................... 23 Manipulation Check for Sexual Arousal Induction ................................................... 23 Effect of Sexual Arousal Induction (Video Condition) on Levels of Disgust and Moral Disapproval ............................................................................................................... 24 Part Two: Correlations Between Individual Differences in Sociomoral Orientation, Disgust Sensitivity, and Disgust Responses ................................................................. 24 Relation Between Disgust and Moral Disapproval Scores ....................................... 24 Relation Between Moral Disapproval and Sociomoral Conservatism Scores .......... 25 Relation Between Sociomoral Conservatism and Disgust Sensitivity Scores ........... 25 Relation Between Disgust and Sociomoral Conservatism Scores............................. 26 Relation Between Moral Disapproval and Disgust Sensitivity Scores...................... 26 Relation Between Disgust and Disgust Sensitivity Scores......................................... 26 iii Relation Between Arousal Change and Moral Disapproval Scores ......................... 27 Relation Between Arousal Change and Disgust Scores ............................................ 27 Relation Between Arousal Change and Disgust Sensitivity Scores ........................... 27 Relation Between Arousal Change and Sociomoral Conservatism Scores ............... 28 Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 28 Part One: Efficacy of Sexual Arousal Induction on Inhibiting Core Disgust and Moral Disapproval in Response to the Incest Vignette ........................................................... 29 Part Two: Correlations Between Individual Differences in Sociomoral Orientation, Disgust Sensitivity, and Disgust Responses ................................................................. 33 Correlations of Individual Differences Within Experimental Group ........................... 36 Limitations and Future Directions ................................................................................ 41 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 49 References ......................................................................................................................... 51 Figures............................................................................................................................... 57 Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 64 Appendix A: Sexual Arousal and Desire Inventory ..................................................... 64 Appendix B: SADI Adapted Sexual Arousal Measure ................................................. 65 Appendix C: Level of Core Disgust Measure ............................................................... 66 Appendix D: Level of Moral Disapproval Measure ..................................................... 67 Appendix E: Level of Social Conservatism Measure ................................................... 68 Appendix F: Adapted Tybur (2009) Disgust Sensitivity Measure ............................... 70 iv Abstract As an act that involves the exchange of bodily fluids, engaging in sex risks exposure to pathogens. However, people still happily engage in sex. Previous research has explained this apparent conflict – sexual arousal can inhibit disgust, making otherwise undesirable contact possible. We sought to investigate this phenomenon in a sociomoral sense, examining whether or not sexual arousal can inhibit disgust in the context of being exposed to an incest taboo. More specifically, our study examined whether an induction of sexual arousal – using sexual (experimental condition) and platonic (control condition) video clips – could lower one’s disgust responses and moral disapproval towards the widely-known “Julie and Mark” incest vignette (Royzman, Kim, & Leeman, 2015). Our study also considered demographics and individual differences, such as sociomoral conservatism and disgust sensitivity, as predictors of arousal, moral disapproval, and disgust towards the vignette. We recruited 272 individuals, both students and nonstudents, between the ages of 18 and 25. We found that the induction of sexual arousal was effective, but it did not significantly lower levels of disgust and moral disapproval in response to the incest vignette in the experimental group compared to the control group. However, we found consistent and positive relations between our variables of interest, including moral disapproval, disgust, sociomoral conservatism, and disgust sensitivity, particularly within the control group. Our results may inform future research on sexual dysfunctions by highlighting the relations between disgust, sexual arousal, and sociomoral conservatism that may bear on these disorders. Keywords: sexual arousal, disgust, moral disapproval, incest, sociomoral conservatism vi List of Figures Figure 1: Main Effect of Time of Testing on Mean Self-Report Sexual Arousal Scores .. ........................................................................................................................................ 58 Figure 2: Main Effect of Video Condition on Self-Report Sexual Arousal Scores ...... 58 Figure 3: Figure Name Interaction Between Time of Testing and Video Condition on Mean Self-Report Sexual Arousal Scores...................................................................... 59 Figure 4: Effect of Video Condition on Mean Levels of Core Disgust in Response to Incest Vignette ............................................................................................................... 59 Figure 5: Effect of Video Condition on Mean Levels of Moral Disapproval Towards Incest Vignette ............................................................................................................... 60 Figure 6: Relation Between Core Disgust and Moral Disapproval by Video Condition... ........................................................................................................................................ 60 Figure 7: Relation Between Moral Disapproval and Sociomoral Conservatism by Video Condition........................................................................................................................ 61 Figure 8: Relation Between Sociomoral Conservatism and Disgust Sensitivity by Video Condition........................................................................................................................ 61 Figure 9: Relation Between Core Disgust and Sociomoral Conservatism by Video Condition........................................................................................................................ 62 Figure 10: Relation Between Moral Disapproval and Disgust Sensitivity by Video Condition........................................................................................................................ 62 Figure 11: Relation Between Core Disgust and Disgust Sensitivity by Video Condition. ........................................................................................................................................ 63 Figure 12: Relation Between Arousal Change and Sociomoral Conservatism by Video Condition........................................................................................................................ 63 Figure 13: Comparison of Mean Disgust Sensitivity, Moral Disapproval, Core Disgust, and Sociomoral Conservatism by Birth Sex .................................................................. 64 vii Literature Review What is Disgust? Psychological theories of disgust date back to Charles Darwin, who defined disgust as “something revolting, primary in relation to the sense of taste, as actually perceived or vividly imagined” (Darwin, 1872/1965, p. 253 as cited in Rozin, Haidt, & McCauley, 2008, p. 757). Angyal (1941) agreed with Darwin and further described disgust as a “revulsion at the prospect of oral incorporation of an offensive object” (e.g. bodily fluids, sexual acts) leading to nausea (p. 757). While this orally centered theory of disgust is widely accepted, there are other definitions of disgust that have shaped contemporary disgust research. For example, Tomkins (1963; 1982) explained disgust as having a relation to the idea of motivation (hunger and sexual desires) and functions to oppose this method, while Renner (1944) and Plutchik (1980) described disgust as avoiding pathogens (as cited in Rozin et al., 2008). The multiple conceptions of disgust illuminate some of the ways in which disgust as a sensation and facial expression (“outputs”) are universal, but the stimuli that trigger disgust responses (“inputs”) are culturally dependent (i.e. what is considered offensive differs by culture). Cultural Dependency of Disgusting Stimuli Some stimuli are universally considered to be disgusting (e.g. poop; Rozin & Fallon, 1987). However, specific disgust elicitors may vary by culture and even by individuals. What is seen as disgusting in one culture may not be disgusting in another culture. For example, in parts of China, people consider cheese to be disgusting, while many people in the United States consider Chinese century eggs to be disgusting. According to Rozin and Fallon (1987), each culture permits certain fermented delicacies, despite maintaining a prohibition on “rotten” food. Cultural differences among disgust elicitors are greatest for interpersonal disgust and moral disgust (Rozin et al., 2008). For instance, in certain countries, having more fat and being plump are signs of wealth and do not prompt interpersonal disgust; in other countries, being overweight may be a sign of poverty and evoke interpersonal disgust (Dinsa, Goryakin, Fumagalli, & Suhrcke, 2012). Considering moral disgust, individualist Western cultures see collectivism as a threat against individualism and rights-based social order, whereas collectivist Eastern cultures view individualism as a threat to a more communal, interdependent social order (Haidt, Rozin, McCauley, & Imada, 1997). Although the input of disgust may vary by culture, the output or response of disgust is rather consistent across cultures (Rozin et al., 2008). Universality of the Emotion of Disgust Across cultures, physiological and behavioral responses to disgusting stimuli are relatively similar. Paul Ekman (1992) articulated nine characteristics of emotion, and disgust meets all his criteria (Rozin et al., 2008). One component of Ekman’s criteria for an emotion is the behavior that is associated with the emotion. Disgust involves the distancing from an object, event, situation, or person and can be further characterized as rejection of a disgust elicitor (Rozin et al., 2008). Another component of Ekman’s criteria for an emotion is a distinct physiological state associated with that emotion. Rozin and colleagues (2008) pointed out that disgust has a very specific physiological state which is marked by nausea, increased salivation, and increased activity of the parasympathetic nervous system (e.g. lowered heart rate). Typically, the disgust response also involves a 2 distinct expressive component including gape of the mouth, retraction of the upper lip, and wrinkling of the nose (Rozin et al., 2008). The expressive activity “centers around the mouth and nose, and the movements tend to either discourage entry into the body (e.g. nose wrinkle) or encourage discharge (gape with or without tongue extension)” (Rozin et al., 2008, p. 759). The last Ekman component that Rozin and colleagues (2008) mentioned is qualia, which is “the mental or feeling component of emotion” (p. 759). It is considered to be “the most central component of disgust” and is described as a sense of revulsion (Rozin et al., 2008, p. 759). All four of these components support the universality of disgust as an emotion. Development of Disgust as a Sensation and an Emotion Distaste, an oral rejection reflex elicited by bitter or sour foods, is innate. Although distaste has the same facial expression as disgust, it is not an emotion because its elicitors are hardwired into the brain. Disgust as an emotion, which is elicited by more complex stimuli one has learned are “offensive” (e.g. sight or smell of feces and vomit), is developed throughout early childhood (Rozin et al., 2008). The specific disgust elicitors are usually shaped by societal and cultural norms. For most humans, the sight of vomit will elicit a disgust response, but the same response may not apply to infants and toddlers due to their undeveloped association between bodily products and disgust. Babies have not developed the “cultural script” that would allow them to understand why people would view bodily products as disgusting (Rozin et al., 2008). By the age of three to five years, children typically have achieved the cognitive abilities and experienced enough socialization to the point where they associate their bodily functions and excretions with the emotion of disgust (Fallon, Rozin, & Pliner, 1984; Rozin et al., 2008). 3 Overtime, the rejection of bodily fluids/products (feces, vomit, mucous, blood) develops the concern for cleanliness and avoidance of pathogens (Ferenczi, 1914/1952; Senn & Solnit, 1968). Most of these theories of development specifically highlight the development of pathogen or core disgust; however, other domains of disgust are nonetheless developed, and some researchers argue that different types of disgust evolved to carry out certain functions. For example, the rejection of bodily products may evolve and branch off into another domain of disgust as individuals begin to engage in sexual activity. Thus, the developed rejection of bodily products in a sexual context may influence the types of sexual behavior individuals choose to partake in and under what circumstances they choose to partake in such behaviors. In this way, disgust as an emotion progresses from a more infantile conception focused on perceiving disgusting stimuli to responding to these stimuli with more sophisticated decision-making and behaviors. These evolved functions have been proposed in a model of disgust that has grown in credibility to dominate the pre-existing academic literature and research on disgust. What Are the Widely Held Domains of Disgusting Stimuli? One model that is commonly referred to as the “traditional model of disgust” was proposed by Rozin, Haidt, and McCauley (RHM; 2008). The RHM model highlights the seemingly “primitive and basic” nature of disgust as well as the uniquely human aspects of disgust (Rozin et al., 2008). The RHM model includes four domains of disgust: core disgust, interpersonal disgust, animal-nature or animal-reminder disgust, and moral disgust (Rozin et al., 2008). The other popular model of disgust which simplifies and 4 reduces the redundancy of the RHM model was proposed by Tybur, Lieberman, Kurzban, and DeScioli (2013). Rozin, Haidt, and McCauley (RHM) Model of Disgust Disgust may have evolved to protect humans from coming into contact with harmful pathogens that could threaten one’s survival. Rozin and colleagues (2008) demarcate the broad range of disgust into core disgust, interpersonal disgust, animalreminder disgust, and moral disgust. The primary component of core disgust is oral inhibition. It is evident that an individual is disgusted by an object when they do not want to put the object in their mouth and work to avoid it. As mentioned earlier, the disgust facial expression is a way in which individuals practice oral inhibition (Rozin et al., 2008). More specifically, core disgust is a type of food rejection that includes behavioral tendencies to avoid the oral incorporation of something offensive — a disgusting object that, when in contact with one’s food, would render the food inedible. In this way, individuals protect themselves from becoming contaminated by the offensive object (Angyal, 1941; Rozin & Fallon, 1987 as cited in Rozin et al., 2008). Oral incorporation is part of core disgust as the mouth is “the principal route by which material things enter the body,” so we typically have more aversive reactions to disgusting stimuli in or around our mouths than on our skin (Rozin et al., 2008, p. 759). Again, these material things are considered disgusting because they are seen as offensive. An early definition of offensiveness, posited by Rozin and Fallon (1987), suggests that for a stimulus to be considered offensive, it is enough for it to merely come into close contact with something that is perceived to be inedible. Lastly, contamination’s role in the RHM model of disgust 5 involves the rejection of an edible object if it has been in contact with something that elicits disgust (e.g. bugs or bacteria) (Rozin et al., 2008). Interpersonal disgust involves contact with other people; like our own bodies, other people are also considered “containers of waste products” and may elicit disgust (Rozin et al., 2008, p. 762). An example of interpersonal disgust is when someone has an aversion to coming into contact with clothing, bedding, and other objects that were used by “unknown or undesirable persons” (Rozin et al., 2008, p. 762). Animal-reminder disgust focuses on the connection between human and animal bodies. The most salient elicitor of animal-reminder disgust is coming into contact with death and corpses (Haidt, McCauley, & Rozin, 1994; Rozin et al., 2008). However, “body envelope violations,” such as open wounds, can also elicit this form of disgust. (Rozin et al., 2008, p. 761). Rozin and colleagues (2008) suggest that animal-reminder disgust extends to any act that reminds us of our animal nature (e.g. eating, excreting, and having sex). In addition to core, animal-reminder, and interpersonal disgust, the last domain of the RHM model is moral disgust. Moral disgust involves “issues of sexuality, gore, or other instances of the misuse or abuse of human bodies” (Rozin et al., 2008, p. 762). An important role of moral disgust is related to socialization, which may generalize morally disgusting elicitors to certain individuals and groups of people (Rozin et al., 2008). Some disgust researchers find that the RHM model is rather outdated, redundant, and relies on convoluted psychological defense mechanisms that lack parsimony (Tybur et al., 2013). The Tybur (2013) model offers a more condensed conception of disgust and attempts to offer solutions to problems that arise in the RHM model and is more firmly 6 grounded in evolutionary theory. The Tybur model includes three domains of disgust: pathogenic disgust, sexual disgust, and moral disgust (Tybur et al., 2013). Tybur, Lieberman, Kurzban, and DeScioli Model of Disgust: The Three Domains The first and primary domain of Tybur and colleagues (2013) model is called “pathogen disgust.” Pathogen disgust is characterized by the avoidance of diseasecausing organisms. Pathogens need to exploit points of contact in their hosts such as the mouth, skin, anus, and genitals in order to infiltrate the host (Tybur et al., 2013). As a means of protection, it is believed that humans developed a sense of repulsion towards certain practices involving the mouth, skin, anus, and genitals in order to avoid these disease-causing organisms. Pathogen-avoidance plays some role in sexual disgust as well; however, Tybur et al.’s (2013) domain of sexual disgust focuses on mate selection and reproductive costs. The act of sex itself is touched on in Rozin et al.’s (2008) animal-reminder disgust. According to the RHM model, sex is disgusting because it is a reminder that human bodies are similar to animal bodies (Rozin et al., 2008). However, the RHM model has been criticized on the grounds that both humans and animals eat and breathe, yet those acts do not invoke disgust. Additionally, sexual acts for humans differ in the level of disgust they elicit. Tybur et al. (2013) propose that instead, sexual disgust’s purpose is to motivate the avoidance of sexual behaviors with partners who impose fitness costs (e.g. large age gaps in sexual partners or sibling incest which could lead to tainted progeny). These sexual behaviors and other sexual fitness jeopardizing behaviors have potential moral implications in addition to eliciting sexual disgust. 7 The moral disgust that Tybur and colleagues (2013) define differs from the moral disgust outlined by Rozin and colleagues (2008). Tybur et al. (2013) explain moral disgust as the condemnation and punishment of certain behaviors that may or may not invoke pathogen or sexual disgust. Certain actions that may elicit pathogen or sexual disgust are viewed as “morally wrong and subject to punishment,” and many of these behaviors have become marked as taboo. Because the Tybur et al. (2013) model of disgust defines moral disgust in terms of behavior, including making moral judgments of and punishing morally condemnable behavior of others, we will be utilizing the term moral disapproval to address the construct of moral or sociomoral disgust as a response to the moral transgression in the current study. Although there are several behaviors and objects that are universally seen as worthy of the typical disgust responses to the respective disgusting stimuli for each of the three domains of disgust (pathogen disgust, sexual disgust, and moral disapproval), there are several factors that may actually diminish or inhibit the typical disgust responses from occurring. Tybur and colleagues (2013) proposed that there are additional factors that “modulate” one’s sensitivity and response to disgust elicitors. People may feel less sexual disgust if no better mate is available (e.g. someone may have sex with an undesirable person if they were their only option). Individuals may feel less moral disapproval towards the perpetrator of a morally condemnable behavior if they are close to the perpetrator. Lastly, people may feel less pathogenic disgust if they are very hungry (e.g. a very hungry individual may eat an old sandwich), if they have a close relationship to someone (e.g. a mother may kiss her sick child but she would not go near a sick stranger), or if they are sexually aroused (e.g. someone may forego the use of a condom to prevent 8 STDs). Sexual arousal plays an interesting role in its relation to disgust. Some researchers have examined the inhibitory effects of inducing core or pathogen disgust on sexual arousal and the effects of inducing sexual arousal on core and pathogen disgust; however, very little literature has examined the potential modulatory effect of inducing sexual arousal on moral disapproval (Lee, Ambler, & Sagarin, 2014; Stevenson, Case, & Oaten, 2011). Before we address the relationship between sexual arousal and the domains of disgust, we will first review the underlying components of sexual arousal. Components of Sexual Arousal Sexual arousal has many components — neural, physiological, and psychological — that are important to consider when studying this construct. Sexual arousal impacts individuals’ sexual responses. Sexual responses refer to the various behaviors and functions that are directly related to sexual stimulation and are in pursuit of a sexual goal like orgasms or sexual satisfaction (Ruesink & Georgiadis, 2017). The sexual pleasure cycle model “underlies the significance of external stimulation next to that of the internal ‘drive’ state [marked by] incentive motivation theory” (Ruesink & Georgiadis, 2017). The sexual pleasure cycle distinguishes three phases of sexual behavior: wanting sex, liking (or engaging in) sex, and inhibiting sex. Sexuality characteristics such as sexual orientation, sexual preference, and gender identity are considered to be elements that simply affect the kind of stimuli that trigger the sexual pleasure cycle in individuals. The patterns observed in each of these three distinct phases are rather consistent across various sexualities and genders when preferred sexual stimuli are used. Although the patterns observed in each phase of the sexual pleasure cycle are consistent across sexuality characteristics, sexual arousal looks physiologically different 9 for females compared to males. For females, some common physiological responses of sexual arousal include vaginal lubrication and expansion, vaginal pulsations, and an increase in genital and basal temperature (Chivers, Seto, Lalumiere, Laan, & Grimbos, 2010; Kukkonen, Binik, Amsel, & Carrier, 2007). For males, some common physiological responses of sexual arousal include penile erection (increase in volume and circumference due to an increased blood flow to genitals) and an increase in genital and basal temperature (Chivers et al., 2010). Overall, sexual satisfaction is typically higher when individuals’ subjective experience of arousal strongly agrees with their physiological indications of sexual arousal (Chivers et al., 2010; Rellini, McCall, Randall, & Meston, 2005). Some studies have analyzed the relationship between automatic thoughts, sexual beliefs, emotional responses, and objective measures of sexual arousal in men and women (Nobre & Pinto-Gouveia, 2008; 2006a; 2006b). Nobre and Pinto-Gouveia (2008) found a positive correlation between self-reported pleasure and satisfaction, and subjective sexual arousal in women and men without sexual dysfunctions. Conversely, they found a negative correlation between satisfaction and pleasure, and negative cognitions in women and men with sexual dysfunctions. These findings suggest that cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dimensions of sexual responses are closely linked. Nobre and Pinto-Gouveia (2008) also suggested that their findings may uncover a negative impact of negative automatic thoughts, depressive affect, and low subjective sexual arousal on overall sexual functioning. High levels of disgust sensitivity and high moral disapproval related to sexual behaviors have been linked to sexual dysfunction (Billingsley et al., 2018). This brings up the question of whether one’s sociomoral beliefs 10 may impact disgust sensitivity, therefore impacting individualized treatment for those suffering from sexual dysfunction. Moral Disapproval and Disgust Sensitivity Layered upon sexual and pathogen disgust are cultural views, values, and beliefs. Moral disgust, which we refer to as moral disapproval in our study, is defined as the aversion towards transgressions of moral values. Individuals who violate moral norms may be perceived as “contaminating” a community, and disgust may function to reject these individuals at a more abstract level. Therefore, disgust may have evolved to regulate decision-making regarding “mate choice and morality” in addition to pathogenavoidance (Tybur et al., 2013). There is a clear connection between disgust sensitivity and sociomoral beliefs. Individuals who are more disgust sensitive tend to condemn moral violations more strongly (Karinen & Chapman, 2018; van Leeuwen, Dukes, Tybur, & Park, 2017). These people tend to share traits such as higher orderliness, higher deviance intolerance, preference for intuitive thinking, and lower generalized social trust. These individuals are also highly motivated in keeping physical and social order (Karinen & Chapman, 2018). Individuals who are more easily disgusted are also more heavily invested in pathogen avoidance (Billingsley et al., 2018). For example, more disgust sensitive individuals tend to hold strong beliefs regarding the practice of sexual and romantic monogamy with the most “fit” partner, as it is seen as the most effective way to promote successful reproduction and healthy progeny, as well as to avoid unnecessary risks of exposure to pathogens and other “contaminants.” 11 These individuals tend to gravitate towards social and political ideologies that simultaneously reinforce their views and serve as strategies in which they can attempt to lessen threats posed by infectious disease, notably sociomoral conservatism (Billingsley et al., 2018; Terrizzi et al., 2013). Therefore, individuals who share these traits tend to have high social cohesion (Terrizzi, Shook, & McDaniel, 2013). This gathering together of individuals who share these particular traits lead to the formation of socially conservative groups – socially conservative individuals have a strong desire to mitigate disease threat, and they can do so most effectively when clustering together as an ingroup. In-Group Formation Within Socially Conservative Individuals In-group favoritism is a hallmark of ideological conservatism (Duckitt & Sibley, 2010). The traits that conservative individuals seem to share – notably, in-group favoritism and hostility toward out-groups, adherence to cultural traditions, and sexual conservatism – all work in context of a general disease-avoidance system, with the overarching goal of reducing the risk of exposure to disease (Inbar & Pizarro, 2016). Because the traits that socially conservative individuals in these groups share center around keeping physical and social order – particularly in terms of quickly judging new things and people who threaten this order – membership serves as an effective front against the dangers of the microbial world (Navarrete & Fessler, 2006). Members of socially conservative in-groups are hyper-vigilant for disorder – to them, disorder is a sign of an incoming threat. Karinen and Chapman (2018) found a positive correlation between the level of trait disgust and in-group loyalty, and authority with respect to moral foundations, furthering the idea that the in-group supports its members in mitigating 12 disease threat. Therefore, it is seen as advantageous to cling to the in-group as they are the collective force that can effectively protect members against threats. Social conservatives’ greater aversion to out-groups can also be explained in an evolutionary sense. In choosing mates, individuals typically interacted with members of their own in-group rather than the out-group. The in-group tended to pose less risk of disease transmission than the out-group because members of the in-group developed antibodies to protect themselves against pathogens present in their in-group, yet they have no such protection against the out-group (Navarrete & Fessler, 2006). DeScioli and Kurzban (2012) emphasized the importance of an individual’s fitness in this way. For the socially conservative in-group, it was advantageous to endorse a no-contact rule with the out-group when evaluating the expected impacts of associating with the out-group on an individual's fitness. Individuals tend to endorse rules that favor their fitness interests and resist rules that run counter to them. Tybur et al. (2013) pushed this idea further, suggesting that rules that condemn and punish casual sex or adultery – acts that socially conservative individuals tend to condemn – are especially advantageous for individuals pursuing a monogamous, paired mating strategy – the strategy that characterizes social conservatives – because they use the punishment for casual sex as an example for their members of what not to do, further promoting their rules. For these socially conservative individuals, promoting these rules is especially beneficial because they are threatened by non-monogamy. If many individuals are having sex with many people, it increases their chances of having children, giving them the upper hand in group relations. Therefore, by enforcing condemnation of these acts, socially conservative individuals limit competition in terms of how many children others have. When members of their in-group have more 13 children, it bolsters the amount of social support they have and protection against the outgroup, and overall promotes their way of life. Conversely, if the out-group has more children, they are promoting a way of life that runs against the in-group and is thus threatening to the in-group. In conclusion, these individuals’ narrow mating strategy, in combination with a set of personality traits focused on order and judgment, has led to an investment in enforcing taboos around lifestyles associated with other mating strategies. In this way, their mating strategies have evolved to have moral implications. Social Conservatism: Influences of In-Group Beliefs on Behaviors Towards Out-Group Ethnocentric attitudes tend to increase in tandem with perceived disease threat, increasing in-group attraction (Navarrete & Fessler, 2006). This leads to bolstering the values of the in-group; in this case, increasing the condemnation of moral violations (Navarrete & Fessler, 2006). In these conservative individuals, the disgust system is activated by the presence of unfamiliar out-groups, marked by group practices that they find morally reprehensible or taboo, which often include sexual practices such as incest. In-groups collectively and continuously reinforce these beliefs by blatantly rejecting outgroup behaviors. When members of one’s own in-group endorse certain acts, assert specific ideologies, or condemn certain acts, individual members’ actions conform to that ideology (Karinen & Chapman, 2018). Posner and Silbaugh (1996) argue that “the strongly held community norms against incest are reason enough, in the minds of most people, to criminalize incest,” suggesting that beliefs are oftentimes rooted in community norms – members oftentimes accept these norms without evaluation (p. 129). 14 Emotional Primacy of Disgust in Moral Judgment One view of moral judgment is that they serve to justify a person’s intuitive, emotional response to a behavior. This position is supported by the moral dumbfounding effect in which individuals stubbornly condemn moral acts without having any supporting, valid reasons (Haidt, Björklund & Murphy, 2000; Haidt & Hersh, 2001). Although all individuals show this effect, it is stronger in social conservatives who may judge behaviors more in terms of inherent wrongness (form) rather than harm to others (consequences) (Haidt, Björklund & Murphy, 2000). A study conducted by Haidt and Hersh (2001) found that in response to moral issues, conservative participants produced significantly more dumbfounded-type responses than liberal participants. When the researchers interviewed conservatives and liberals about homosexual sex, conservatives were much more likely to moralize and condemn homosexual sex than liberals, yet they were not able to explain why. These participants exhibited affective reactions in response to the act; perception of harmfulness did not seem to have a significant effect. This displeasure towards perceived moral violations often takes the form of disgust. When encountering incest, for example, “one feels a quick flash of revulsion ... and one knows intuitively that something is wrong.” Judgments are made quickly and automatically, often driven by emotions and gut feelings (Haidt, Koller, & Dias, 1993; Haidt, 2001). Affective reactions can oftentimes accompany moral judgment, especially in situations that involve high emotion, such as sexual activities (Haidt et al., 2000). The moral dumbfounding effect is further supported by the moral foundations theory, which states that individuals morally judge certain acts simply because they elicit disgust (Graham et al., 2009; Haidt, 2012). Therefore, these judgments do not always come from 15 a place of rigorous evaluation of the situation; they can be intuitive, guided by underlying drives such as disgust. While socially conservative individuals tend to strongly condemn cultural taboos such as homosexual sex and unusual forms of masturbation, there was not a significant effect for condemnation of scenarios involving incest as it is a universally condemned taboo (Haidt & Hersh, 2001). Additionally, incestuous acts have been shown to be involved in an entirely separate – yet overlapping – brain network when compared to other sexual, presumably immoral, acts (Schaich Borg, Lieberman, & Kiehl, 2008). Therefore, there is a component of incest that is fundamentally different from other forms of sexual acts that people condemn as immoral. The current study aims to investigate this effect further. Current Study The current study explores the inhibitory relationship between sexual arousal, core disgust – in an oral inhibitory sense as that is the construct Royzman et al. (2015) stresses because it is most indicative of disgust’s visceral nature and emotional primacy – and moral disapproval. We also examined the roles of disgust sensitivity and social conservatism in this relationship. The first part of our study experimentally tests the role of moral disapproval in sociomoral judgment by exploiting the sexual arousal-disgust link. Our hypothesis was that the group receiving a sexual arousal induction will be less disgusted by a sexual transgression (of the widely held incest taboo) than the group that is not receiving a sexual arousal induction. This hypothesis is derived from the Tybur et al. (2013) theory that sexual arousal and disgust have a mutually inhibitory relationship (we are testing one direction of the inhibition, from arousal to disgust). We analyzed this 16 relation using an independent samples t-test. The second part of our study examines correlations between the two previously mentioned domains of disgust (core and moral) and individual differences, including levels of social conservatism and disgust sensitivity. Our hypothesis was that the socially liberal participants will have significantly lower core disgust scores and less moral disapproval in response to reading an incest vignette than the socially conservative participants. Based on previous research that linked traits of sociomoral conservatism to disgust sensitivity, we also hypothesized that individual differences in disgust sensitivity will correlate with social conservatism, overall influencing disgust responses to the vignette. Methods Participants We recruited 272 college students at various institutions as well as non-students across the United States. 9.2% (n = 25) of our participants were 18-years-old, 16.2% (n = 44) were 19, 11.4% (n = 31) were 20, 29% (n = 79) were 21, 19.9% (n = 54) were 22, 5.1% (n =14) were 23, 3.3% (n = 9) were 24, 3.6% (n = 10) were 25, and 2.2% (n = 6) did not specify their age. The gender distribution was 20.6% (n = 56) male, 75.4% (n = 205) female, 1.5% (n = 4) were nonbinary, and 2.6% (n = 7) did not specify their gender. Of the 272 participants, 76.1% (n = 207) self-identified as White, 2.2% (n = 6) Black or African American, 10.3% (n = 28) Asian, 0.4% (n = 1) Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 3.3% (n = 9) Latinx, 2.9% (n = 8) mixed race, 2.2% (n = 6) other, and 2.6% (n = 7) did not specify their race. 6.6% (n = 18) of participants identified as gay, 61.0% (n = 166) identified as straight, 18.8% (n = 51) identified as bisexual, 4.0% (n = 11) identified 17 as pansexual, 1.8% (n = 5) identified as asexual, 4.0% (n = 11) identified as questioning, 1.1% (n = 3) identified as another sexual orientation, and 2.6% (n = 7) did not specify their sexual orientation. 75.7% (n = 206) of our participants were current students at the research institution, 7.7% (n = 21) were students at another institution, and 16.5% (n = 45) were non-students. In order to recruit participants, we advertised through school email listservs, Facebook and Instagram posts, and word of mouth requesting individuals between the ages of 18 and 25 to participate in a study that involved disgust, sex, and attitudes. 267 of the 272 participants voluntarily completed the entirety of the study. The other five did not complete the entirety of the study. Measures Level of Sexual Arousal To gauge the effect of the induction of sexual arousal via the video clips, each participant went through a set of eight to ten statements to self-report their subjective level of sexual arousal – both before and after the induction (or lack thereof, for the control condition) of arousal – adapted from the Sexual Arousal and Desire Inventory (See Appendices A & B). Participants were asked to indicate how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the statements on a Likert scale, with 1 meaning Strongly disagree and 7 meaning Strongly agree. Statements used to measure the initial level of sexual arousal included “I am feeling physiologically turned on right now” and “I am uninterested in engaging in sexual acts right now.” The statements used to measure the second level of sexual of arousal included similar questions to the initial set as well as a few questions pertaining to the video such as “I am intrigued by the sexual behavior in the video” and “I am not turned on by the sexual acts depicted in the video.” The Cronbach’s alpha for the 18 pre-arousal measure was α = .895, meaning the measure had good internal consistency. The Cronbach’s alpha for the control group’s post-arousal measure was α = .883, meaning the measure also had good internal consistency. The Cronbach’s alpha for the experimental group’s post-arousal measure was α = .910, meaning the measure had excellent internal consistency. Level of Core Disgust To measure participants’ level of disgust and oral inhibition — meaning an aversion to putting an object in one’s mouth, demonstrating a physical reaction to disgust — towards the “Julie and Mark” vignette (Royzman et al., 2015), we asked them to indicate how strongly they agreed or disagreed with six statements on a Likert scale, with 1 meaning Strongly disagree and 7 meaning Strongly agree (See Appendix C). Statements used to measure disgust included “I am grossed out after reading the Julie and Mark vignette” and “I could eat a meal after reading the Julie and Mark vignette.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this measure was α = .875, meaning the measure had good internal consistency. Level of Moral Disapproval To measure participants’ degree of moral disapproval towards the “Julie and Mark” vignette, we asked them to indicate how strongly they agreed or disagreed with ten statements on a Likert scale, with 1 meaning Strongly disagree and 7 meaning Strongly agree (See Appendix D). The statements we used included “Julie and Mark should not feel guilty about what they did” and “What Julie and Mark did was wrong.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this measure was α = .933, meaning the measure had excellent internal consistency. This measure specifically aims to address the condemnation and 19 punishment of behaviors that Tybur et al. (2013) describe in relation to moral disgust. In this way, we chose to label this construct as “moral disapproval” in an attempt to more accurately present the nature of the questions we asked participants. Level of Social Conservatism To measure participants’ level of social conservatism, each participant completed a measure of Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) items classified as primarily expressing conservative attitudes (conventionalism and authoritarian submission), designed by Duckitt, Bizumic, Krauss, and Heled (2010). While they had 19 items listed that they had used in their study, we chose to narrow down the list to 12 in the interest of time, conciseness, and relevance (See Appendix E). Participants indicated how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the items on a Likert scale, with 1 meaning Strongly disagree and 7 meaning Strongly agree. An example item from this scale is “Premarital sexual intercourse is wrong.” Another example item from the scale is “The facts on crime, sexual immorality, and the recent media all show we have to crack down harder on deviant groups and troublemakers, if we are going to save our moral standards and preserve law and order.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this measure was α = .813, meaning the measure had good internal consistency. Disgust Sensitivity To measure participants’ level of disgust sensitivity, each participant completed an adapted version of the Three-Domain Disgust Scale designed by Tybur, Lieberman, & Griskevicius (2009). The scale contains various scenarios that people may or may not find disgusting. While they had 21 items listed that they had used in their study, we chose to narrow down the list to seven in the interest of selecting questions that were relevant to 20 our study (See Appendix F). Participants rated the items on a 7-point scale, with 1 meaning Not at all disgusting and 7 meaning Extremely disgusting. The statements we used included “Finding out that someone you don’t like has sexual fantasies about you” and “Bringing someone you just met back to your room to have sex.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this adapted measure was α = .781, meaning the measure had acceptable internal consistency. Materials Video Clips Both groups chose their preference from a selection of three video clips (one clip of a heterosexual couple, one of a gay couple, and one of a lesbian couple as an attempt to be inclusive of various sexual preferences). The heterosexual video clip depicted Will Smith and Margot Robbie in the movie Focus, the gay video clip depicted Taron Egerton and Richard Madden in the movie Rocket Man, and the lesbian video clip depicted Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman in Black Swan. The control group watched a one-minute clip of a platonic interaction between the two characters from the movie they chose. The experimental group watched a one-minute clip of a sexually arousing interaction between the two characters from the movie they chose. Procedure After opening a link to the Qualtrics survey sent via email, participants read the informed consent form. Those who did not provide consent were exited from the survey. The Qualtrics survey then randomly assigned each participant to one of two conditions: the control group or the experimental group. All participants in each group 21 completed a set of questions to gauge their initial level of sexual arousal based on the Sexual Arousal and Desire Inventory. After selecting and watching the movie clips, each participant answered a set of questions to gauge their second level of sexual arousal. The participants in the control group (platonic-video group) answered all but two questions (these two questions alluded to sexual content within the videos) to gauge their post-video sexual arousal. The experimental group (sexual-video group) answered the full set of questions. Participants in both conditions then read the popular “Julie and Mark” incest vignette. We kept the original details about the use of contraception in the vignette but condensed the sentence to clearly emphasize that the act would not cause any physical harm, in order to ensure that participants’ responses were solely focused on their disgust towards and moral disapproval of the incestuous act. We changed the phrase “making love” to “having sex” so that the incestuous incident did not include romantic behavior as well, which could further complicate participants’ responses. These small changes are included in brackets. The incest vignette is as follows: Julie and Mark are brother and sister. They are traveling together in France on summer vacation from college. One night they are staying alone in a cabin near the beach. They decide that it would be interesting and fun if they tried [having sex]. At the very least it would be a new experience for each of them. [They used a condom and Julie was on birth control]. They [enjoyed having sex with each other], but they decide not to do it again. They keep that night as a special secret, which makes them feel even closer to each other. (Royzman et al., 2015, p. 297) After reading the “Julie and Mark” vignette, participants completed measures of core disgust and moral disapproval in response to Julie and Mark’s behavior described in the vignette. They then answered demographic questions regarding age, race, sexual 22 orientation, and gender. After, they completed a measure of social conservatism and a measure of disgust sensitivity. Results Part One: Efficacy of Sexual Arousal Induction on Inhibiting Core Disgust and Moral Disapproval in Response to the Incest Vignette Manipulation Check for Sexual Arousal Induction We ran a mixed-effects 2 (video condition: experimental; control) X 2 (time: prevideo clip; post-video clip) ANOVA to test whether our induction of sexual arousal was successful. There was a main effect of time, F(1, 269) = 270.530, p < .001, ηp2 = .501 (shown in Figure 1). There was also a main effect of video condition, F(1, 269) = 16.140, p < .001, ηp2 = .057 (shown in Figure 2). Of most relevance, there was a significant video condition by time interaction on self-reported sexual arousal, F(1, 269) = 75.056, p < .001. ηp2 = .218 (shown in Figure 3). We conducted paired samples t-tests to compare the mean pre- and post- sexual arousal scores in each video condition. On average, participants in the experimental group reported significantly greater levels of sexual arousal after watching the sexual video clip (M = 4.29, SD = 1.22) compared to before watching the sexual video clip (M = 2.77, SD = 1.17), t(134) = -14.887, p < .001, d = 1.239. This is a large effect size. Interestingly, on average, participants in the control group also reported significantly greater levels of sexual arousal after watching the platonic video clip (M = 3.23, SD = 1.17) compared to before watching the platonic video clip (M = 2.76, SD = 1.26), t(135) = -7.206, p < .001, d = .510. This is a medium effect size. 23 Although both condition groups reported significant increases in sexual arousal, an independent samples t-test comparing the post-video sexual arousal scores reported for both conditions shows that the experimental group (M = 4.29, SD = 1.22) reported a significantly greater mean post-video level of sexual arousal compared to the control group (M = 3.23, SD = 1.17), t(269) = -7.322, p < .001, d = .889. This is a large effect size. Effect of Sexual Arousal Induction (Video Condition) on Levels of Disgust and Moral Disapproval We ran independent samples t-tests to see whether there was an effect of sexual arousal (video condition) on participants’ disgust towards and moral disapproval of the incest vignette. On average, disgust scores in response to the incest vignette were not significantly different for the participants in the experimental group (M = 3.66, SD = 1.22) compared to the participants in the control group (M = 3.60, SD = 1.33), t(268) = .416, p = .678. This comparison is shown in Figure 4. On average, moral disapproval in response to the incest vignette was not significantly different for the experimental group (M = 5.13, SD = 1.16) compared to the control group (M = 5.04, SD = 1.24), t(268) = .597, p = .551. Figure 5 shows this comparison. Part Two: Correlations Between Individual Differences in Sociomoral Orientation, Disgust Sensitivity, and Disgust Responses Relation Between Disgust and Moral Disapproval Scores We ran a correlation to examine the relation between participants’ level of disgust — in an oral inhibitory sense — and moral disapproval exhibited towards the incest vignette. In the control group, who did not receive the sexual arousal induction, there was 24 a consistent and positive relation between disgust and moral disapproval, Pearson’s r = .699, p < .001. In the experimental group, who did receive the sexual arousal induction, there was also a consistent and positive relation between disgust and moral disapproval scores, Pearson’s r = .663, p < .001. Similarly, there was also a consistent and positive relation between disgust and moral disapproval when looking at the sample as a whole, Pearson’s r = .683, p < .001. These relations are depicted in Figure 6 split up by control group, experimental group, and full sample. Relation Between Moral Disapproval and Sociomoral Conservatism Scores In the control group, there was a consistent and positive relation between moral disapproval and sociomoral conservatism, Pearson’s r = .238, p =.005. In the experimental group, there was not a significant relation between moral disapproval and sociomoral conservatism scores, Pearson’s r = .032, p =.714. There was also a consistent and positive relation between moral disapproval and sociomoral conservatism looking at our sample as a whole, Pearson’s r = .146, p = .016. These relations are depicted in Figure 7 split up by control group, experimental group, and full sample. Relation Between Sociomoral Conservatism and Disgust Sensitivity Scores In the control group, there was a consistent and positive relation between sociomoral conservatism and disgust sensitivity, Pearson’s r = .423, p < .001. In the experimental group, there was not a significant correlation, Pearson’s r = .152, p = .081. There was also a consistent and positive relation between sociomoral conservatism and disgust sensitivity when looking at the sample as a whole, Pearson’s r = .313, p < .001. These relations are shown in Figure 8 split up by control group, experimental group, and full sample. 25 Relation Between Disgust and Sociomoral Conservatism Scores In the control group, there was a consistent and positive relation between disgust exhibited towards the incest vignette and self-reported sociomoral conservatism scores, Pearson’s r = .310, p < .001. In the experimental group, there was not a significant relation between disgust and sociomoral conservatism, Pearson’s r = -.023, p = .789. There was also a consistent and positive relation between disgust and sociomoral conservatism looking at our sample as a whole, Pearson’s r = .165, p = .007. These relations are depicted in Figure 9 split up by control group, experimental group, and full sample. Relation Between Moral Disapproval and Disgust Sensitivity Scores In the control group, there was a consistent and positive relation between moral disapproval exhibited towards the incest vignette and self-reported disgust sensitivity, Pearson’s r = .311, p < .001. In the experimental group, there was also a consistent and positive relation between moral disapproval and disgust sensitivity, Pearson’s r = .293, p = .001. There was also a consistent and positive relation between moral disapproval and disgust sensitivity for the sample as a whole, Pearson’s r = .298, p < .001. These relations are depicted in Figure 10 split up by control group, experimental group, and full sample. Relation Between Disgust and Disgust Sensitivity Scores In the control group, there was a consistent and positive relation between disgust towards the incest vignette and self-reported disgust sensitivity, Pearson’s r = .353, p < .001. In the experimental group, there was also a consistent and positive relation between disgust towards the incest vignette and self-reported disgust sensitivity, Pearson’s r = .202, p = .019. There was also a consistent and positive relation between disgust towards 26 the incest vignette and self-reported disgust sensitivity looking at our sample as a whole, Pearson’s r = .282, p < .001. Figure 11 demonstrates these relations split up by control group, experiment group, and full sample. Relation Between Arousal Change and Moral Disapproval Scores In the experimental group, there was not a significant relation between participants’ sexual arousal change (the difference between their pre-video and postvideo arousal scores) and their moral disapproval towards the incest vignette, Pearson’s r = .045, p = .607. In the control group, there was not a significant relation between sexual arousal change and moral disapproval, Pearson’s r = .032, p = .708. Similarly, there was not a significant relation between sexual arousal change and moral disapproval for the sample as a whole, Pearson’s r = .051, p = .404. Relation Between Arousal Change and Disgust Scores In the experimental group, there was not a significant relation between participants’ arousal change and their disgust towards the incest vignette, Pearson’s r = .045, p = .609. In the control group, there was not a significant relation between arousal change and disgust, Pearson’s r = -.001, p = .991. Similarly, there was not a significant relation between arousal change and disgust for the sample as a whole, Pearson’s r = .034, p = .580. Relation Between Arousal Change and Disgust Sensitivity Scores In the experimental group, there was not a significant relation between arousal change and self-reported disgust sensitivity, Pearson’s r = -.093, p = .285. There was also not a significant relation between arousal change and disgust sensitivity in the control group, Pearson’s r = .075, p = .387. Additionally, there was not a significant relation 27 between arousal change and disgust sensitivity for the sample as a whole, Pearson’s r = .067, p = .277. Relation Between Arousal Change and Sociomoral Conservatism Scores There was a significant negative relation between participants’ reported sexual arousal change and their level of sociomoral conservatism in the experimental group, Pearson’s r = -.223, p = .010. In the control group, there was not a significant relation between arousal change and self-reported sociomoral conservatism, Pearson’s r = -.128, p = .138. This relation was also significant looking at the sample as a whole, Pearson’s r = -.182, p = .003. Figure 12 visualizes these results split up by control group, experimental group, and full sample. Discussion Previous literature has delved into disgust’s effect on sexual arousal; researchers have shown that disgust disrupts one’s ability to become sexually aroused. When sexual arousal is inhibited in this way, it can lead to negative sexual experiences, exacerbating a person’s sense of disappointment and disgust with their own body. However, little research has studied the opposite effect – sexual arousal inhibiting disgust responses to potentially disgusting stimuli. An even larger gap in research exists pertaining to the potential inhibitory effect of sexual arousal on disgust and moral disapproval towards sexually charged moral transgressions. Our study bridged this gap, exploring the relations between sexual arousal, disgust, and moral disapproval unidirectionally. Our method of inducing sexual arousal via sexual video clips was successful at significantly increasing participants’ self-reported sexual arousal levels in the experimental group. Interestingly, the participants in the control group, who were not 28 intended to experience a sexual arousal induction, also reported a significant increase in their levels of subjective sexual arousal after watching the platonic video clips. However, the experimental group reported a significantly greater increase in their levels of sexual arousal and significantly higher post-video levels of sexual arousal than the control group. The experimental group had a large effect size for the influence of the sexual video clips on sexual arousal, yet the control group only had a medium effect size for the influence of the platonic video clips on sexual arousal (see Figure 3). Given the significant difference between these effect sizes, when we address the effects of the “sexual arousal induction” throughout the remainder of this paper, we are specifically referring to the increases in arousal observed in the experimental group via the sexual video clips. Later in this section, we consider various explanations for this phenomenon, including response bias and characteristics of the video clips we chose. Additionally, against our prediction, the induction of sexual arousal in the experimental group did not significantly lower levels of disgust and moral disapproval in response to the incest vignette. Although, we did observe significant correlations between several variables, including moral disapproval, disgust, sociomoral conservatism, and disgust sensitivity that were consistent with extant theory. Part One: Efficacy of Sexual Arousal Induction on Inhibiting Core Disgust and Moral Disapproval in Response to the Incest Vignette Our attempt to induce sexual arousal through the use of short sexual video clips was successful. The experimental group had significantly higher self-report, post-video levels of sexual arousal, and overall changes in sexual arousal compared to the control group’s self-report, post-video levels of sexual arousal, and overall changes in sexual 29 arousal. We had a medium effect size for video conditions, so this method may be considered for future experimental research on sexual arousal. The control group also exhibited a significant increase in levels of sexual arousal, but to a lesser degree than the experimental group. Although the significant increase in sexual arousal levels within the control group is surprising, there are numerous possible explanations. For one, because participants completed measures of sexual arousal levels before and after the video was shown, response bias in the form of demand characteristics may have occurred. Additionally, the platonic videos that we presented to participants may not have been as platonic as we expected. Since all the videos featured couples — the same couples shown in a sexual manner to the experimental group — there was minimal flirting and perhaps sexual tension in the platonic videos. Another explanation of the control group’s increase in sexual arousal levels may have been due to the video clips all being from popular films. Participants who were familiar with the films knew the context of the couples’ relationship, so perhaps they became aroused simply thinking about the intimate nature of their relationship. Furthermore, the couples featured in the films were all young, attractive, and fairly popular in the media. Therefore, perhaps some participants became aroused simply by viewing these famous actors and actresses. Although our sexual arousal induction was statistically effective and our experiment was highly powered, we found that the induction of sexual arousal failed to significantly inhibit participants’ core disgust or moral disapproval in response to the moral transgression (the “Julie and Mark” incest vignette). These findings refute our hypothesis that the induction of sexual arousal would lead participants in the 30 experimental group to report significantly lower levels of core and moral disgust in response to the incest vignette than the participants in the control group. These unexpected results are interesting given that all of the relevant measures had good to excellent internal consistency and our measures seemed to have both high validity of measurements as well as high internal validity of study. Assuming that all of the participants’ self-report responses were genuine — considering that the data were collected anonymously — and participants were instructed to complete the survey in a private space, our results seem to suggest theoretical boundaries to Tybur and colleagues’ (2013) disgust modulation theory. Disgust modulation is grounded in the notion that the evolutionary function of the disgust mechanism is to weigh the costs and benefits of coming into contact with a disgust elicitor (an input), and depending on which outweighs the other, certain behavior will be evoked (the output) to either initiate a disgust response or inhibit a disgust response (Tybur et al., 2013). The weighing of costs and benefits are most salient in cases where the disgust elicitor has the potential to significantly harm or offend the person who is at risk of coming in contact with the disgust elicitor. That being said, factors (such as hunger) that have the potential to modulate typical disgust outputs for specific disgust inputs are most efficacious when they are directly related to the person’s current goals (such as satisfying their hunger) and the relevant domain of disgust (which, in the case of hunger, is typically pathogen disgust when food has been qualified as inedible). There is evidence that sexual arousal works as a modulator for sexual disgust (if someone is very aroused they may not be concerned about the value of their intended mate) and for pathogen disgust (if someone is very aroused they may not be concerned 31 about contracting a sexually transmitted disease or be grossed out by certain sexual acts or bodily products) (Tybur et al., 2013). Both of these scenarios involve the aroused person being directly connected to the consequences of coming in contact with the disgust elicitor. In the case of our study, our participants in the experimental group, although having experienced sexual arousal, were very much physically and relationally separated from the consequences of Julie and Mark’s incestuous behavior. One modulator of moral disgust that Tybur and colleagues (2013) discuss is the relationship the person who is subject to the disgust response has to the person who is committing the immoral act. For instance, if someone found out that their best friend cheated on their partner, the person may be less inclined to morally disapprove of their best friend’s behavior since the person may care more about maintaining the friendship than punishing their best friend’s behavior. However, if the person’s best friend’s partner cheated on them, the person is more likely to feel morally disgusted by their best friend’s partner’s behavior and condemn their infidelity as the person would not care as much about salvaging their rapport with the partner as much as they care about supporting their best friend. Our participants had no relational ties to either of the fictional characters in the vignette, our participants were very much physically removed from the people committing the disgusting act (2013), and it is possible that the fictionality of the vignette could have made it more difficult to activate the disgust modulation within our participants’ disgust mechanisms. Therefore, in order for sexual arousal to be a modulator of a certain domain of disgust, it may require a more salient risk of exposure to the disgusting input and the potential harm it poses to an individual. The results of Lee and colleagues’ (2014) study which examined the effect of sexual arousal on the three domains of disgust also support 32 domain-specificity of disgust modulation and inhibition. Although our findings do not support the idea that sexual arousal may inhibit disgust and moral disapproval in response to incest, they do seem to support previous literature that emphasizes how particularly visceral and potent disgust is as an emotion. Part Two: Correlations Between Individual Differences in Sociomoral Orientation, Disgust Sensitivity, and Disgust Responses The results of a correlation analysis indicated that there was a consistent and positive relation between disgust and moral disapproval towards the incest vignette in both the control and experimental groups. Given the existing literature on the nature of disgust and moral disapproval, we expected this finding. The moral dumbfounding effect and moral foundations theory clearly show the positive relation between disgust and moral disapproval. The moral dumbfounding effect expresses that individuals condemn immoral acts without having any valid or supporting reasons. One’s condemnation of an act is rooted in disgust rather than any logical argument (Haidt, Björklund & Murphy, 2000; Haidt & Hersh, 2001). This effect ties into the moral foundations theory, which states that individuals morally judge acts simply because these acts elicit disgust (Graham et al., 2009; Haidt, 2012). Considering the visceral and immediate nature of disgust, it makes sense that disgust would predict moral judgments in this way. Therefore, the fact that the more participants found the incest vignette disgusting, the more they morally disapproved of the incestuous act is supported by the literature. Our findings suggest that because participants were disgusted by the incestuous act, they also disapproved of it — simply because of the way it made them feel. When encountering incest in particular, individuals tend to “feel a quick flash of revulsion ... 33 and … know intuitively that something is wrong” (Haidt, Koller, & Dias, 1993; Haidt, 2001). This phenomenon certainly seemed to ring true in our study — no matter if participants were sexually aroused or not — highlighting the intensity of disgust. For the remainder of the correlations, we will only discuss them in terms of the control group and across our sample as a whole as these results reflect findings from previous literature. We are able to examine the groups separately because we had enough participants for adequate power, enabling us to detect small to medium size correlations in each group. Furthermore, we do not want to undermine correlations that exist regardless of the sexual arousal induction because they are valid correlations in and of themselves. They have been supported by previous literature and contextualize the results of our study. Later in the discussion, we will discuss potential explanations for correlations in the experimental group as well as offer suggestions for future studies to consider potential mediating effects of sexual arousal on the aforementioned correlations. We found a consistent and positive relation between participants’ moral disapproval towards the incest vignette and their degree of sociomoral conservatism upon running a correlation analysis. This finding can also be explained in terms of the moral dumbfounding effect as expressed in previous literature. Haidt and Hersh (2001) in particular found that in response to moral issues, conservative participants produced significantly more dumbfounded-type responses than liberal participants. In this qualitative 2001 study, the responses that conservative participants exhibited were much more affective and rooted in emotion than liberal participants’ responses, and their responses were devoid of a perception of harmfulness. Applying this finding to our results, it is understandable that the more socially conservative our participants were, the 34 more they morally disapproved of the incest vignette. It is plausible that this moral disapproval was disgust-driven, aligning with the moral dumbfounding effect. The consistent and positive relations we found between moral disapproval, sociomoral conservatism, and disgust sensitivity can all be related to each other. They are all interconnected as sociomoral conservatism and disgust sensitivity share many traits, it is expected that both variables correlated with moral disapproval. In the existing literature, there is much overlap between disgust sensitivity and sociomoral conservatism. Disgust sensitivity and sociomoral conservatism share many traits, such as higher orderliness, higher deviance intolerance, preference for intuitive thinking, lower generalized social trust, and highly motivated in keeping physical and social order. Therefore, socially conservative individuals tend to be more disgust sensitive. Furthermore, those who are more disgust sensitive tend to condemn moral violations more strongly (Karinen & Chapman, 2018; van Leeuwen, Dukes, Tybur, & Park, 2017). In this way, it makes sense that our results showed how both disgust sensitivity and sociomoral conservatism were correlated with moral disapproval. Previous literature supports our finding that socially conservative participants were more disgust sensitive and also exhibited higher rates of moral disapproval towards the incest vignette. Our findings continue to build off each other. The consistent and positive relations we found between disgust, sociomoral conservatism, moral disapproval, and disgust sensitivity also tie into previous literature that suggests those who are more sociomorally conservative tend to be more disgust sensitive and thus condemn moral violations more strongly (Billingsley et al., 2018; Terrizzi et al., 2013; Karinen & Chapman, 2018; van Leeuwen, Dukes, Tybur, & Park, 2017). We found a consistent and 35 positive relation between disgust towards the incest vignette and sociomoral conservatism. Considering that sociomorally conservative individuals tend to be more disgust sensitive, it is somewhat intuitive that they exhibited greater levels of disgust towards the incest vignette than more sociomorally liberal participants. Additionally, there was a consistent and positive relation between moral disapproval towards the incest vignette and disgust sensitivity. If those who are more disgust sensitive tend to condemn moral violations more strongly, as suggested by the previous literature, it is reasonable that our participants who were more disgust sensitive also tended to morally disapprove of the incest vignette. Furthermore, we found a consistent and positive relation between disgust exhibited towards the incest vignette and disgust sensitivity. This finding aligns with existing literature; individuals who are more disgust sensitive would be more disgusted by an incestuous act that is widely considered to be taboo due to its disgusting nature. This intuitionist judgment also aligns with the moral dumbfounding effect, demonstrating the pervasive and powerful nature of this effect. Correlations of Individual Differences Within Experimental Group The relation between sexual arousal and moral disapproval, sociomoral conservatism, and disgust sensitivity is somewhat unchartered territory in psychology; however, patterns in pre-existing literature provide a useful framework for interpreting the correlations – and lack thereof – that we see within the experimental group (the group that received the sexual arousal induction). As mentioned in the background for our study, more disgust sensitive individuals tend to be more invested in behaviors that protect them from sexual, pathogenic, and moral contamination than less disgust sensitive 36 individuals (Billingsley et al., 2018; Karinen & Chapman, 2018; van Leeuwen, Dukes, Tybur, & Park, 2017). These disgust sensitive people also tend to seek validation of their beliefs and behaviors from others who share their same values and who will actively reinforce their behaviors through socialization, thus promoting sociomoral conservatism (Billingsley et al., 2018; Terrizzi et al., 2013). In line with findings from previous studies, this trend between personal disgust sensitivity and the practice of sociomoral conservatism is sensible, and the significant and positive relation between sociomoral conservatism and disgust sensitivity that we found within our control group and overall sample supports this. Perhaps somewhat less conspicuous than those findings are the nonsignificant relations we found between sociomoral conservatism and disgust sensitivity, moral disapproval in response to the vignette and sociomoral conservatism, and disgust in response to the vignette and sociomoral conservatism within the experimental group. To be clear, the relation between two traits, like disgust sensitivity and sociomoral conservatism, should not be impacted by a single experience in a physiological state, such as sexual arousal, as disgust sensitivity and sociomoral conservatism are stable characteristics. Respectively, the effect of video condition on this relation is not suggesting that one experience of sexual arousal can change disgust sensitivity or sociomoral conservatism. It may, however, suggest that sexual arousal may be more closely linked to one trait more than the other. One of the most notable differences between the two constructs (sociomoral conservatism and disgust sensitivity) is that one is inherently more social than the other. Sociomoral conservatism, as it states in the name, is the social and cultural application of one’s own beliefs and preferences towards 37 higher orderliness, intuitive thinking, and the upholding of traditions to various aspects of life and society (Karinen & Chapman, 2018). While disgust sensitivity may be socially constructed in regards to some disgust elicitors – such as the socializing that occurs around labeling certain phenomena as taboo and therefore maintaining them as objects of disgust – it is more indicative of how an individual person will respond to any type of disgust elicitor rooted in stable traits, regardless of its social reliance. Given that the condemnation of sexual behavior (or any behavior for that matter) is inherently social, as it involves one person judging or shaming another, perhaps one’s ability to become sexually aroused and their attitudes about giving into sexual desires are more socially influenced than they are innate. Applying this idea that sexual arousal may be more socially constructed than the experience of disgust, it is reasonable that the sexual arousal induction did not get rid of the relation between core disgust and disgust sensitivity or the relation between moral disapproval and disgust sensitivity. This may be because participants’ core disgust and moral disapproval in response to a moral transgression may be less reliant on context and logic, enabling participants to respond with their gut instincts devoid of sociomoral reasoning as demonstrated by the moral dumbfounding effect (Haidt, Björklund & Murphy, 2000; Haidt & Hersh, 2001). Complementary to the theoretical application and interpretation of the relations that remained intact with the sexual arousal induction — between moral disapproval and disgust sensitivity as well as between disgust and disgust sensitivity — is our interpretation of the relations that dissolved – between moral disapproval and sociomoral conservatism as well as between disgust and sociomoral conservatism — once the sexual arousal induction was added to the equation. 38 The sexual arousal induction reduced into insignificance both the consistent and positive relation we found between moral disapproval and sociomoral conservatism in the control group as well as the consistent and positive relation between disgust and sociomoral conservatism in the control group. Continuing on the same thread as our previous explanations of relations within the experimental group, we can make sense of this considering how socially and contextually dependent sociomoral conservatism is compared to disgust sensitivity, disgust, and moral disapproval. It is important to consider the role of sexual arousal in the relation between moral disapproval of and disgust towards the incest vignette and levels of sociomoral conservatism. Our findings may suggest that adding sexual arousal to the equation may inherently complicate the constructs being examined, and water down participants’ levels of disgust in response to the incest vignette. In our study, the more sociomorally conservative participants who also received the sexual arousal induction may not have experienced as much disgust in response to the vignette as the sociomorally conservative participants in the control group. This is perhaps because our attempt to induce sexual arousal may have made them feel an emotion other than disgust. For example, the sociomorally conservative participants in the experimental group could have been angered or embarrassed by the sexual video clips, or they may have even felt ashamed for watching the video. In this case, participants’ concurring mood or other emotional state may have been more salient than their disgust towards the incest vignette, due to another one of their values or beliefs being more directly offended. Because we did not ask participants about what other emotions they may have been feeling during the study, it is difficult to conclude exactly 39 what the experimental condition may have invoked within the more sociomoral conservative participants. Lastly, it is worth noting that of all of the correlation analyses we ran involving participants’ change in sexual arousal (the difference between their pre-video clip and post-video clip levels of arousal), the only significant relation we found was between arousal change and sociomoral conservatism in the experimental group. It appears that more sociomorally conservative participants experienced less of an arousal change compared to the more sociomorally liberal participants. Although we cannot prove causation from correlation, our possible explanations for this relation are similar to the explanations of the previous relations. Perhaps more sociomorally conservative individuals felt too ashamed to report that they were experiencing sexual arousal due to deeply-ingrained conservative beliefs, perhaps they were more resistant to the arousal induction as they may not have enjoyed the video clips or even felt offended by the video clips, or they may have more trouble becoming sexually aroused in the first place due to internalized sexual shame. Research on the role of disgust in the development and maintenance of certain sexual dysfunctions supports the possibility that sociomoral conservatism may pose negative effects on one’s sex-related experiences. For example, Borg, de Jong, and Schultz (2011) found that holding oneself to extremely high moral standards regarding sexual behavior may increase one’s likelihood of having more negative emotions towards sex and thus may lead to more negative sexual experiences. Researchers who are interested in digging deeper into the theoretical explanations of the results of our experimental group correlations may consider examining the link between 40 sociomoral conservatism and people’s ability to become sexually aroused, or at least their willingness to acknowledge sexual arousal and engage in sexual activity. Limitations and Future Directions The current study sought to fill gaps in research pertaining to moral disapproval, individual differences in disgust, and the modulatory effects of sexual arousal on the different domains of disgust. As our study was heavily exploratory, methodological limitations are anticipated. There were some limitations in our study that may have exerted an effect on our results. For one, we found that the control group reported a significant increase in sexual arousal as well as the experimental group; however, the increase was to a lesser degree in the control group than in the experimental group. The fact that participants’ levels of sexual arousal were self-reported may have become a limitation, leading to these unexpected results. Response bias in many forms is likely. As we suggested in our discussion of possible explanations for the results within the experimental group, participants could have been embarrassed or ashamed of being sexually aroused following the induction. As a result, they may have displayed social desirability bias, downplaying their level of sexual arousal and leading to inaccurate data. On the other hand, as we introduced earlier in the discussion section, participants may have guessed that having them complete a measure of sexual arousal, showing them a sexual video clip, and then having them complete another measure of sexual arousal was an attempt to induce sexual arousal. In this way, demand characteristics may have been involved in that participants could have subconsciously reported their arousal in ways they thought the researchers were predicting. Demand characteristics may have operated in the same way 41 for the control group as they may have believed that they were supposed to be sexually aroused following the video (not knowing that they were in the control group or that there was another treatment group), and completed the sexual arousal measures with that assumption in mind. Another potential limitation of the sexual arousal induction may have been our choice of films for the video clips. Although the movies we selected the film clips from are quite popular films, we chose to use these films as we were able to extract scenes of vastly different natures with the same two characters (which helped us control for the effect of the specific actors and actresses depicted between conditions). We also chose these movies so we could be inclusive of different sexual preferences and because the actors and actresses seemed to represent some of the diversity present in our target population — arguably a strength of our methodology. Regarding our use of subjective measures of sexual arousal, other researchers have used more accurate psychophysiological measures of sexual arousal, such as measures of genital blood flow, vaginal vascular changes and labial temperature (Janssen, 2002; Woodard & Diamond, 2009). Clearly, these measures were not an option for this study due to lack of resources and materials to conduct such measures, the nature of our study being online, and the context of the study being conducted within a small undergraduate institution. The fact that our participants were able to complete our study in a private and comfortable location of their choosing, however, could be seen as a strength for our study as it may be more representative of the locations where people would typically be experiencing sexual arousal. However, the use of psychophysiological 42 tools in addition to subjective sexual arousal measures could have led to more accurate reports of sexual arousal. Another limitation of our study was that our attempt to induce sexual arousal did not significantly inhibit participants’ disgust or moral disapproval towards the incest vignette. This is a surprising result, and it may possibly be explained by our methodology. We did not expose our participants to disgusting stimuli or measure their baseline disgust levels before inducing sexual arousal. Therefore, we do not have any data related to disgust before showing participants the incest vignette. In this way, we could not measure the difference between pre- and post- disgust levels among groups. We also found an interesting consistent, negative relation between arousal change and sociomoral conservatism. This relation could be explained by the idea that more conservative participants were ashamed of honestly and accurately reporting their level of arousal. It could also point to the idea that more sociomorally conservative participants could have been disgusted by the induction of sexual arousal; prior literature has shown that sociomorally conservative participants have a strong preference for monogamy, and the videos that we showed did not align with that view as they depicted casual sexual encounters rather than monogamous ones, making a disgust response a possibility. However, the lack of a disgust measure prior to the induction limits our ability to see if either of those ideas truly influenced the data. At the same time, the nature of the study being online usurps some control from us as researchers. We could not control the environment that participants took the study in. Although we strongly advised participants to take the study alone in a private space, we cannot guarantee that this actually occurred. Especially because of the sexual nature 43 of our study, some participants may not have taken the study seriously and completed it alongside friends, potentially skewing the results of our study. Additionally, we cannot control the situational factors that may have exerted an effect on the study. We do not know the context of the lives of the individuals taking the study or their mood going into the study. For example, participants could have just gone through a breakup, so the induction of sexual arousal may not have sexually aroused them, but rather made them sad. The feelings of sadness could have overpowered the arousal. Additionally, participants could have been annoyed or irritated while taking the study, so they may have condemned the acts displayed in the incest vignette more strongly simply because they were more willing to condemn any behavior in their current emotional or mood state. It is also important to consider the way in which we designed the order of our study. We chose the order in hopes of preventing participants from feeling self-conscious about their sociomoral orientation and demographic characteristics prior to the arousal induction and prior to responding to the incest vignette. However, because the sexual arousal induction and incest vignette came before the measures of disgust sensitivity and sociomoral conservatism, it could have prompted order effects bias, shaping one’s response to the measures. For example, if an individual typically self-identifies as conservative, yet was very sexually aroused by the sexual arousal induction, they may believe in the moment that they are not as conservative as they thought they were since the video exerted such an effect. As a result, they may have downplayed their conservatism during the sociomoral conservatism measure. Similarly, if a person did not like the incest vignette at all, they may believe that they are more disgust sensitive than 44 they actually are and over-estimate their responses to the disgust sensitivity measure. It is possible that an individual has a strong aversion to incest — yet is not normally disgust sensitive — but because they were so heavily disgusted by incest, they assume they are disgust sensitive and answer the measure that way. Conversely, the statements we provided for the disgust sensitivity scale may not have seemed that disgusting compared to the incest vignette, so people may have reported lower levels of disgust towards the provided statements. To deal with these potential order effects, we could have counterbalanced the demographic, disgust sensitivity, and sociomoral conservatism measures. In this way, we could have seen if the order of the measures impacts our results. Counterbalancing may have helped determine the direction of relations and some causation. It may have also helped identify confounding and extraneous variables. Additionally, the measures we used for disgust sensitivity and sociomoral conservatism could be improved upon. The disgust sensitivity measure had adequate internal consistency that could be improved upon. For this measure, we used an adapted version of the Three-Domain Disgust Scale designed by Tybur et al. (2009), picking out only the statements that were sexual in nature to utilize for our study. Looking back, it may have been more valid to leave in all the statements — whether they were sexual or not — to get a broader and more holistic concept of one’s disgust sensitivity to all domains of disgust. This would have been especially helpful in ruling out potential reasons for why we found that sexual arousal may not be a modulator of moral disapproval like we had originally thought, besides the idea that disgust modulation may be strictly domain specific. Additionally, the measures we used for sociomoral conservatism contained statements that were quite long-winded and utilized language that 45 felt outdated for our target population. Since our participants were ages 18 to 25, it would have been beneficial to modify the language so that it was more relevant to and more comprehensible to young adults. We could have also developed the statements to be more representative of the modern sociomoral and political climate, increasing external validity. Our external validity is another limitation of our study. Approximately 75% of our sample consisted of students from the same undergraduate institution, around 75% were white, and 75% were female. Given such a homogenous sample, our results are not generalizable to the general public. In particular, the disproportionate number of female participants who took our study compared to male or non-binary participants could have exerted an effect on our study. Research has shown women display consistently higher levels of sexual disgust than men (Tybur et al., 2011). There are some possible explanations for higher disgust sensitivity in women. For one, there is much stigma associated with women who have many sexual partners, so women may have learned to see high sexual behavior as disgusting. Additionally, women are victims of sexual assault significantly more often than men, so seeing sexual behavior as disgusting may have been an effort to protect themselves against sexually coercive men to avoid sexual assault and rape. Evolutionarily, research suggests that women are seemingly more invested in choosing a high-quality mate, so they may be more sensitive to unorthodox forms of mating, such as incest (Al-Shawaf, Lewis, & Buss, 2017). Due to the large number of women who took our study, mean disgust and moral disapproval levels towards the incest vignette may have been higher than if we had a more equal distribution of gender representation in our study. Additionally, the mean disgust sensitivity of participants may 46 have been lower had we had more male and non-binary participants. Research supports the effects we found of gender and birth sex on disgust levels and disgust sensitivity (see Tybur et al., 2013). Our results showed that both non-cis and cis-gendered women reported significantly higher levels of disgust sensitivity, moral disapproval, and disgust towards the incest vignette, but not of sociomoral conservatism compared to non-cis and cis-gendered men.1 Figure 13 visualizes these comparisons based on the birth sex of participants. However, women typically show a faster decline in disgust sensitivity, specifically towards pathogens, overtime compared to men (Al-Shawaf, Lewis, & Buss, 2017; Haidt et al., 1994; Lee & Zietsch, 2015; Tybur et al., 2009). Additionally, with 75% of our participants coming from a well-endowed, expensive, elite undergraduate institution and 75% being white, our sample aligns with a WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) society as posited by Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan (2010). As a result, our sample is “among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans,” according to the 2010 study. Moreover, we only recruited participants between the ages of 18 and 25. College-aged students have drastically different experiences compared to middle-aged or older adults that may shape what they do and do not find disgusting. Evidence shows that disgust sensitivity also slowly declines with age, so future research could run additional analyses to see if this effect of age on disgust sensitivity may impact responses to the 1 The respective t-statistics for these comparisons (based on birth sex) are as follows: for disgust sensitivity, t(263) = -5.186, p < .001, d = .836; for moral disapproval, t(263) = 3.747, p < .001, d = .547; for disgust, t(263) = -3.240, p = .001, d = .480; and for sociomoral conservatism, t(263) = 1.185, p = .237, d = .181. Results of these t-tests are very similar based on preferred gender as well; however, we did not include those analyses for the sake of redundancy. 47 incest vignette (Berger & Anaki, 2014; Lee & Zietsch, 2015). Furthermore, we did not have a satisfactory distribution of sociomoral conservatism and disgust sensitivity. The majority of our participants were low in sociomoral conservatism and disgust sensitivity. Broadening our reach to include more conservative participants would have been beneficial as it may have resulted in stronger correlations, which could allow us to draw more substantial conclusions regarding the effects of individual differences on disgust and arousal. Taking our study’s limitations into account, we have some additional suggestions for how to methodologically improve the conduction of future research seeking to examine similar constructs. For one, future researchers may choose to include video clips from lesser known movies with lesser known actors and actresses in addition to taking extra precaution while selecting video clips for a platonic condition — paying particular attention to flirting, innuendos, and moments in which the audience may be able to guess the sexual or romantic nature of the characters’ relationship — in order to avoid undesirable effects within the control group. Additionally, it may be advantageous to elicit disgust prior to the sexual arousal induction using a different moral transgression, and then comparing participants’ disgust responses before and after the sexual arousal induction to similarly immoral scenarios to further confirm whether sexual arousal may have the modulatory ability to inhibit moral disgust. It may also be beneficial to study the relation between sexual arousal and moral disgust in a within-subjects versus betweensubjects design as people have considerably different sexual preferences and disgust sensitivities. This may be possible with the use of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) via smartphone repeated sampling. This method would ensure ecological validity 48 and make it more possible to study “microprocesses that influence behavior in real-world contexts” (Shiffman, Stone, & Huffard, 2008). Additionally, as our study was partially inspired by disgust’s role in sexual dysfunctions, particularly how disgust inhibits arousal, it would be interesting to examine sociomoral conservatism and disgust sensitivity as possible predictors of sexual dysfunctions to more substantially inform the prevention and treatment of sexual dysfunctions. Borg et al. (2011) found that individuals with vaginismus (now considered part of Genito-Pelvic Pain or Penetration Disorder), tend to score relatively low on liberal values and high on conservative values, suggesting that pressure to adhere to strict sex-related moral standards may in fact increase one’s likelihood of developing a sexual dysfunction. Conclusion Although we did not find a significant inhibitory effect of sexual arousal on disgust and moral disapproval in response to an incest vignette, our results still add to the literature within disgust research and suggest that Tybur et al.’s (2013) theory of disgust modulation may be bound by domain-specific disgust inhibitors. We also were able to successfully induce self-report sexual arousal utilizing video clips from movies, offering future sexual arousal researchers an effective method of inducing sexual arousal. 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Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 11(1), 92-98. 56 Figures Figure 1 Main Effect of Time of Testing on Mean Self-Report Sexual Arousal Scores Figure 2 Main Effect of Video Condition on Self-Report Sexual Arousal Scores 57 Figure 3 Interaction Between Time of Testing and Video Condition on Mean Self-Report Sexual Arousal Scores Figure 4 Effect of Video Condition on Mean Levels of Core Disgust in Response to Incest Vignette 58 Figure 5 Effect of Video Condition on Mean Levels of Moral Disapproval Towards Incest Vignette Figure 6 Relation Between Core Disgust and Moral Disapproval by Video Condition 59 Figure 7 Relation Between Moral Disapproval and Sociomoral Conservatism by Video Condition Figure 8 Relation Between Sociomoral Conservatism and Disgust Sensitivity by Video Condition 60 Figure 9 Relation Between Core Disgust and Sociomoral Conservatism by Video Condition Figure 10 Relation Between Moral Disapproval and Disgust Sensitivity by Video Condition 61 Figure 11 Relation Between Core Disgust and Disgust Sensitivity by Video Condition Figure 12 Relation Between Arousal Change and Sociomoral Conservatism by Video Condition 62 Figure 13 Comparison of Mean Disgust Sensitivity, Moral Disapproval, Core Disgust, and Sociomoral Conservatism by Birth Sex 63 Appendices Appendix A: Sexual Arousal and Desire Inventory 64 Appendix B: SADI Adapted Sexual Arousal Measure Statement Pre-video, post-video, or both arousal levels Experimental or Control Group I am feeling physiologically turned on/sexually aroused right now. both both I am not sexually aroused right now. both both I am feeling horny right now. both both I am not physiologically and sexually aroused right now. both both I am feeling physiologically pleasant sensations (i.e. tingly/quivering/throbbing sensations, lustful, wet/hard, warm all over). both both I am not feeling sexually turned on right now. both both I currently want to engage in sexual behavior right now. both both I am uninterested in engaging in sexual acts right now. both both I have an urge/temptation to engage in a sexual act right now (i.e. masturbation, kissing, oral sex, penetrative sex, sexual teasing). both both I am feeling physically uncomfortable after watching the video post both I am intrigued by the sexual behavior in the video post experimental I am not turned on by the sexual acts depicted in the video. post experimental I am uninterested in the content of the video. post both 65 Appendix C: Level of Core Disgust Measure 1. I feel disgusted after reading the Julie and Mark vignette 2. I have lost my appetite since reading the Julie and Mark vignette 3. I feel nauseated after reading the vignette 4. I am not disgusted after reading the Julie and Mark vignette 5. I am grossed out after reading the Julie and Mark vignette 6. I could eat a meal after reading the Julie and Mark vignette 7. I feel like I could vomit right now after reading the Julie and Mark vignette 66 Appendix D: Level of Moral Disapproval Measure 1. Julie and Mark should not feel guilty about what they did 2. What Julie and Mark did was wrong 3. Julie and Mark should not have had sex with each other 4. Julie and Mark having sex ruined their family dynamic 5. There is nothing wrong with what Julie and Mark did 6. Julie and Mark should be ashamed of what they did 7. It is not problematic that Julie and Mark had sex 8. Julie and Mark should have considered the consequences of their actions before having sex 9. Julie and Mark should feel guilty about what they did 10. It isn’t Julie and Mark’s fault that they wanted to have sex with each other 67 Appendix E: Level of Social Conservatism Measure 1. Premarital sexual intercourse is wrong. 2. The facts on crime, sexual immorality, and the recent media all show we have to crack down harder on deviant groups and troublemakers, if we are going to save our moral standards and preserve law and order. 3. Nobody should stick to the ‘straight and narrow,’ instead people should break loose and try out lots of different ideas and experiences. 4. Homosexuals and feminists should be praised for being brave enough to defy ‘traditional family values. 5. People should pay less attention to old-fashioned forms of moral guidance, and instead develop their own personal standards of what is moral and immoral. 6. The real keys to the ‘good life’ are sticking to the straight and narrow. 7. A lot of our rules concerning modesty and sexual behaviour are just customs which are not necessarily any better or holier than those which other people follow. 8. People who are more open to trying new and different sexual experiences are just as healthy and moral as anyone else. 9. Society needs free thinkers who have the courage to defy traditional ways, even if this upsets many people. 10. The only way our society can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our traditional values and silence the troublemakers spreading bad ideas. 11. Our society will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the perversions eating away at our moral fiber and traditional beliefs. 68 12. What our society really needs instead of more “civil rights” is a good stiff dose of law and order. 69 Appendix F: Adapted Tybur (2009) Disgust Sensitivity Measure 1. Hearing two strangers having sex 2. Performing oral sex 3. Watching a pornographic video 4. Finding out that someone you don’t like has sexual fantasies about you 5. Bringing someone you just met back to your room to have sex 6. A stranger of the opposite sex intentionally rubbing your thigh in an elevator 7. Having anal sex with someone of the opposite sex 70