Imagine no religion: Heretical disgust, anger and the symbolic purity of mind

Abstract

Immoral actions, including physical/sexual (e.g., incest) and social (e.g., unfairness) taboos, are often described as disgusting. But what about immoral thoughts, more specifically, thoughts that violate religious beliefs? Do heretical thoughts taint the purity of mind? The present research examined heretical disgust using self-report measures and facial electromyography. Religious thought violations consistently elicited both self-reported disgust and anger. Feelings of disgust also predicted harsh moral judgement, independent of anger, and were mediated by feelings of "contamination". However, religious thought violations were not associated with a disgust facial expression (i.e., levator labii muscle activity) that was elicited by physically disgusting stimuli. We conclude that people (especially more religious people) do feel disgust in response to heretical thoughts that is meaningfully distinct from anger as a moral emotion. However, heretical disgust is not embodied in a physical disgust response. Rather, disgust has a symbolic moral value that marks heretical thoughts as harmful and aversive.

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Imagine no religion: Heretical disgust, anger
and the symbolic purity of mind
Ryan S. Rittera, Jesse L. Prestona, Erika Salomona & Daniel Relihan-Johnsona
a Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign,
Champaign, IL, USA
Published online: 22 Apr 2015.
To cite this article: Ryan S. Ritter, Jesse L. Preston, Erika Salomon & Daniel Relihan-Johnson (2015):
Imagine no religion: Heretical disgust, anger and the symbolic purity of mind, Cognition and Emotion, DOI:
10.1080/02699931.2015.1030334
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Imagine no religion: Heretical disgust, anger and the
symbolic purity of mind
Ryan S. Ritter, Jesse L. Preston, Erika Salomon, and Daniel Relihan-Johnson
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
(Received 4 September 2014; accepted 11 March 2015)
Immoral actions, including physical/sexual (e.g., incest) and social (e.g., unfairness) taboos, are often
described as disgusting. But what about immoral thoughts, more specifically, thoughts that violate
religious beliefs? Do heretical thoughts taint the purity of mind? The present research examined
heretical disgust using self-report measures and facial electromyography. Religious thought violations
consistently elicited both self-reported disgust and anger. Feelings of disgust also predicted harsh
moral judgement, independent of anger, and were mediated by feelings of “contamination”. However,
religious thought violations were not associated with a disgust facial expression (i.e., levator labii
muscle activity) that was elicited by physically disgusting stimuli. We conclude that people (especially
more religious people) do feel disgust in response to heretical thoughts that is meaningfully distinct
from anger as a moral emotion. However, heretical disgust is not embodied in a physical disgust
response. Rather, disgust has a symbolic moral value that marks heretical thoughts as harmful and
aversive.
Keywords:Religion; Disgust; Anger; Morality of mind; Heretical thought.
In the song Imagine, John Lennon (1971) invited
listeners to consider a world with no religion. For
Lennon, an atheist, these thoughts were a vision of
utopia. But for many religious people, Lennon’s
song could be considered heresy. Religious beliefs
are sacred to believers and may even carry drastic
moral consequences. Holding virtuous thoughts in
mind may therefore feel clean and pure, whereas
imagining heretical ideas may feel dirty, tainting
one’s very mind and soul. Here we investigate the
feelings of purity and impurity to the spiritual
content of mind: does imagining heretical thoughts
elicit disgust?
Moral and physical disgust
Disgust is not only a visceral response to physical
contaminants (e.g., vomit, faeces), but also serves
as a moral emotion. Just as we are repulsed by
rotten food and filthy water to protect the body
from sickness, we can be repulsed by rotten deeds
and filthy actions to protect a healthy social order
(Rozin, Haidt, & McCauley, 2008). Proponents
of the “oral origins of moral disgust”argue that
moral disgust evolved from physical disgust to
help us avoid immoral actions and people (Chap-
man, Kim, Susskind, & Anderson, 2009; for a
Correspondence should be addressed to: Ryan S. Ritter, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign,
603 E. Daniel St., Champaign, IL 61820, USA. E-mail: ryan.s.ritter@gmail.com
© 2015 Taylor & Francis 1
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review, see Chapman & Anderson, 2013). In this
view, moral disgust is an extension of bodily
disgust, and so is based in the same physiological
mechanisms (oral/nasal inhibition, dyspepsia),
with similar physiological signatures. Deep asso-
ciations between morality and disgust are revealed
when physical disgust crosses over to moral
judgements; for example, feelings of physical
disgust can sometimes be misattributed as moral
disgust (Eskine, Kacinik, & Prinz, 2011; Horberg,
Oveis, Keltner, & Cohen, 2009; Schnall, Haidt,
Clore, & Jordan, 2008; cf. Cheng, Ottati, & Price,
2013). Immoral actions (i.e., unfair offers in an
ultimatum game) have been shown to evoke
spontaneous disgust expressions (i.e., wrinkled
nose, curled upper lip)—the same expression
elicited by bitter tastes and disgusting photographs
(Chapman et al., 2009). Immorality (or at least,
immoral actions) also seems to trigger mechanisms
of physical disgust (e.g., physiology, behaviour and
facial expression; Rozin et al., 2008). Yet others
suggest that moral disgust is not literal, but rather
is used metaphorically to conceptualise aversion to
immorality (Royzman & Kurzban, 2011; Royz-
man & Sabini, 2001). To describe sins as rotten
and foul, and sinners as vile and revolting marks
them not only as “bad”but also as an insidious
threat to moral health. Whether heretical disgust
is truly embodied or metaphorical, ideas of con-
tamination and purity may help render heretical
thoughts as highly threatening and aversive. Or, in
the language of disgust: heretical people, actions
and thoughts become sickening, to be avoided like
the plague.
Religion and purity
Religion also has strong associations with purity
and impurity. A core feature of all major religions
is the distinction between the sacred—elements of
the divine to be kept pure—and the profane—
earthly elements that can threaten that purity
(Durkheim, 1912/1915). Many religious rituals
(e.g., ablution, baptism, mikvah) use bodily wash-
ing as means towards spiritual purity, directly
linking goals of physical and symbolic purity
(Preston & Ritter, 2012). These associations
between cleanliness and spirituality can also be
seen on an individual level: incidence of obsessive-
compulsive disorder (often characterised by fixa-
tion on washing) is greater among strongly reli-
gious individuals (Lewis, 1998; Sica, Novara, &
Sanavio, 2002; Zohar, Goldman, Calamary, &
Mashiah, 2005). The association between religion
and purity can also render counter-religious ideas
as dirty. In a taste test, Christians rated a lemon
drink as more disgusting after they had just hand-
copied from an Islamic or atheist text, compared
to Christians who had just copied a passage from
the Bible (Ritter & Preston, 2011). Religion thus
appears to be strongly connected to the pursuit
of purity, in both a literal and symbolic way: the
pursuit of spirituality is the pursuit of purity. In
contrast, moving away from religious ideals and
spirituality may seem to be impure and dirty.
The purity of mind
The primary goal of this research is to extend
investigations of moral disgust to the spiritual
purity of mind.For religious people, religion and
God are commonly viewed as the source of
morality (Pew Research Center, 2014), whereas
atheists are frequently perceived as immoral and
untrustworthy (Gervais, Shariff, & Norenzayan,
2011). Does mere contemplation of heretical
thoughts (i.e., ideas contrary to one’s closely held
religious beliefs) elicit disgust? Most of the moral
violations studied by psychologists involve real or
hypothetical actions that interact with the world in
some tangible way. The few studies of spiritual
disgust also measure disgust following a physical
action (e.g., writing down a heretical passage,
Ritter & Preston, 2011). But it is unclear whether
disgust might also apply to the morality of mind.
Minds, and the thoughts therein, are intuitively
treated as separate from the physical world
(Bloom, 2004; Preston, Ritter, & Hepler, 2013).
Disgust (whether literal or symbolic) is rooted in
ideas of contamination and so has close connec-
tion to the body and the physical world. It is
therefore possible that disgust may not be a
meaningful concept when dealing with the mor-
ality of a mind believed to exist outside the
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physical world. On the other hand, people do
readily apply magical properties to contagion and
contamination (Frazer, 1890), so the limits of
natural boundaries may not be as important as the
perception that thoughts threaten the purity of
mind—ideas of moral contamination. Despite
tendencies towards mind-body dualism, we argue
that people treat the content of mind as contam-
inable and experience disgust when contemplating
ideas that threaten spiritual purity. Not all reli-
gious groups moralise thoughts as they do actions
(Cohen, 2003; Cohen & Rozin, 2001), but to the
extent that religious thoughts are moralised they
may also carry associations with purity and impur-
ity. Thoughts that affirm one’s religious beliefs
should feel pure, but thoughts that violate religious
beliefs—heretical thoughts—should feel dirty and
impure.
Moral disgust and anger
A secondary goal of this research was to examine
the relationship between disgust and anger to
heretical thoughts. Anger and disgust are both
moral emotions and are frequently co-activated in
response to moral violations (Gutierrez, Giner-
Sorolla, & Vasiljevic, 2012; Marzillier & Davey,
2004; Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Simpson,
Carter, Anthony, & Overton, 2006). There has
been some debate whether disgust can be mean-
ingfully distinguished from anger as a moral
emotion or whether disgust is merely a synonym
for anger (e.g., Nabi, 2002). If people do experi-
ence disgust to heretical thoughts, is this distinct
from anger? When asked to think about “taboo
counterfactuals”(e.g., What if Joseph left Mary
when she got pregnant?), religious people respond
with greater moral outrage in general, including
feelings of disgust, anger and contempt (Tetlock,
Kristel, Elson, Green, & Lerner, 2000). Reading a
statement perceived as false (either factually or
ideologically) is associated with increased activity
in the anterior insula (Harris, Sheth, & Cohen,
2008), an area implicated in the experience of
disgust and distaste. However, the anterior insula
is also implicated in other negative affective
experiences including anger, anxiety and physical
pain (Chapman & Anderson, 2013). If disgust can
be felt towards immoral thoughts, it is also
important to determine whether those feelings
are meaningfully distinct from anger.
THE PRESENT RESEARCH
Religion has strong associations with purity and
avoidance of impurity, but does this apply to the
spiritual purity of mind? In this research we
investigate disgust responses to religious thought
violations (i.e., contemplation of heretical
thoughts). We predict that religious statements
judged to be false (heretical thoughts) will elicit
disgust, and that increased disgust will predict
harsher moral judgement of those statements.
This effect is likely to be most pronounced among
more religious people—for whom the heretical
statements carry more negative moral meaning.
We also investigate the nature of heretical disgust.
Specifically, we examine the relationship between
heretical disgust and anger—are these distinct
moral emotions elicited by heretical thoughts, or
are they synonymous? As in studies of immoral
actions, we expect that heretical thoughts will elicit
both anger and disgust. But disgust and anger may
be distinguished from each other by their rela-
tionship with moral judgement. If disgust has a
unique association with moral judgement not
shared with anger, this would indicate that heret-
ical disgust is meaningfully distinct from anger as
a moral emotion. Another way that disgust and
anger may differ is in feelings of contamination.
That is, heretical thoughts may elicit feelings of
disgust because they are perceived to infect and
taint the mind and, in turn, lead to feelings of
uncleanliness. We examine this hypothesis by
testing whether disgust, but not anger, is asso-
ciated with subjective feelings of contamination.
Finally, we investigate the extent to which
heretical disgust is embodied in physiological
disgust, or whether it is experienced metaphoric-
ally to represent the moral aversion to heretical
thoughts. We address this question in Studies 2a
and 2b using facial electromyography (EMG) to
measure spontaneous disgust expressions during
heretical thoughts. If heretical thoughts and
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physical contaminants elicit the same spontaneous
disgust expression (i.e., levator labii activity), this
would provide further evidence that heretical
disgust is rooted in physical repulsion (Chapman
et al., 2009). But if physical contaminants and
religious thought violations elicit different patterns
of facial muscle activity, this would suggest that
heretical disgust is metaphorical/symbolic, but not
embodied in physiological disgust.
STUDIES 1a AND 1b
Studies 1a and 1b investigated self-reported emo-
tions in response to religious thought violations.
Participants were randomly assigned to read one of
sixteen statements that could represent one of four
categories: factual true/false (e.g., “the earth orbits
around the sun”,“the earth’s moon is made out of
cheese”) or religious true/false (e.g., “Jesus is the
light and the way”,“God does not exist”). We did
not make any assumptions about which statements
would be perceived as true or false. Rather, parti-
cipants rated whether they perceived the statement
to be true or false using semantic differential
scales, and these judgements were used for sub-
sequent analyses. This method thus allowed us
to capture the case where a religious and non-
religious person may have divergent attitudes
towards the same statement. Study 1b also meas-
ured subjective feelings of contamination (e.g.,
feelings of uncleanliness). We predict that reli-
gious thought violations will be associated with
greater disgust than other types of statements, and
that disgust will predict more harsh moral judge-
ments. Moreover, we predict that these feelings of
disgust can be meaningfully distinguished from
anger: disgust should predict moral judgement
even after controlling for anger and other negative
emotions, and disgust (but not anger) should be
associated with subjective feelings of contamina-
tion. We also examine the moderating role of
religiosity. Heretical statements should elicit dis-
gust only to the extent they are morally meaning-
ful, and so we predict that relatively more religious
people will report stronger feelings of disgust/
contamination and report more harsh moral judge-
ments in response to religious thought violations.
METHOD
Participants
Participants were recruited online from the USA
through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk using Turk-
Gate version 0.4.0 (Goldin & Darlow, 2013)to
prevent repeat participation. Three hundred peo-
ple were recruited for Study 1a, and 300 people
were recruited for Study 1b. In each study we
aimed for approximately 75 participants per cell
(factual true, factual false, religious true and
religious false), 300 participants total. This sample
size would enable us to detect a “medium”effect
size of at least d= .46 between two groups and a
correlation as small as r= .16 across the entire
sample (assuming α= .05, power = .80). Thirty-
four people from Study 1a and 19 people from
Study 1b were excluded for having a completely
neutral attitude towards the statement they were
assigned to read. This left 266 people (56.8% men;
mean age = 32.24 years, SD = 11.50) included in
the analyses for Study 1a, and 281 people (56.6%
men; mean age = 33.62 years, SD = 12.41)
included in the analyses for Study 1b. Self-
reported religious affiliations for participants in
Study 1a included 73 Atheists, 64 Agnostics, 47
Protestants, 37 Catholics, 37 “Other”, 7 Muslims,
5 Buddhists, 4 Jews and 1 Hindu. Participants in
Study 1b included 74 Atheists, 66 Protestants, 60
Agnostics, 46 Catholics, 33 “Other”, 3 Buddhists,
4 Jews, 2 Muslims and 1 Hindu.
Procedure
In both Study 1a and 1b, participants were ran-
domly assigned to read 1 of 16 statements (see
Supplementary Material). To distinguish heretical
thoughts from general perception of falseness,
eight of the possible statements were factually
based (e.g., “The earth orbits around the sun”;
“The earth’s moon is made out of cheese”), and
eight were religiously based (e.g., “Jesus is the way,
the truth, and the life”,“Praying to God is a waste
of time”). A heretical statement was therefore one
that was both religious-based and perceived to be
false by the participant.
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Self-reported emotional experience
Using 7-point scales, participants indicated how
much they experienced each of six emotions as they
considered the statement: disgust, anger, fear/anxi-
ety, sadness, surprise and happiness/joy (1 = not felt
at all;7=very strongly felt). The six emotion scales
appeared on a single page in a different randomised
order for each participant.
Veracity
Whether the statement was perceived as true or
false was measured using two 7-point semantic
differential scales: true–false and acceptable–unac-
ceptable. Each point was labelled “extremely”,
“quite”,“slightly”or “neutral”(e.g., 1 = extremely
true to 7 = extremely false).
Moral judgement
Moral judgement was assessed using three 7-
point semantic differential scales: immoral–moral,
wicked–virtuous and good–bad (e.g., 1 = extremely
immoral to 7 = extremely moral).
Contamination
In Study 1b only, subjective feelings of contam-
ination were also measured using three 7-point
semantic differential scales: dirty–clean,contami-
nated–purified and uplifted–degraded (e.g., 1 =
extremely dirty to 7 = extremely clean). Contamina-
tion was assessed in between the emotional
experience and veracity/moral judgement sections.
Demographics
Finally, participants in both studies completed a
four-item measure of religiosity (e.g., “I consider
myself a religious person”) and other demo-
graphics (age, sex, ethnicity, first language, polit-
ical identity and religious affiliation). Participants
were moderately religious on average (Study 1a:
M= 3.17, SD = 2.10; Study 1b: M= 3.51,
SD = 2.22).
RESULTS
Preparing data for analysis
R version 3.1.2 (R Core Team, 2014) was used for
statistical analyses in this and all subsequent
studies. R code and data files are available from
first author upon request. Confidence intervals
(95%) are reported in brackets.
A categorical statement type variable (factual
vs. religious) was created by coding the a-priori
factual statements as factual and the a-priori
religious statements as religious. For religious
statements, we expected there to be variability in
perceived truth/falseness of statements, particularly
for non-Christian and atheist participants. A
categorical veracity variable (true vs. false) was
created using participants’responses to the two
veracity items. Specifically, the mean of the two
items was computed to create a composite measure
of veracity (Study 1a Cronbach’sα= .94; Study 1b
α= .92), and participants were excluded if they
perceived the statement as neither true nor false
(i.e., if their mean veracity score was exactly 4).
1
We also consider the important role of religi-
osity as a moderator. Strongly religious partici-
pants may be especially likely to see the religious
false statements as violating sacred values. For
non-religious participants, the theistic statements
may be judged as religious false (“heretical”), but
might not hold the same moral value as heretical
statements do for religious participants. If this
were the case, we would observe a three-way
interaction among veracity, statement type and
religiosity such that veracity drives reactions most
strongly for religious participants considering reli-
gious statements. To investigate these possibilities,
disgust, anger, moral judgement and contamina-
tion ratings were regressed onto variables repre-
senting veracity (true = −0.5, false = 0.5),
statement type (factual = −0.5, religious = 0.5),
religiosity (centred) and their interactions for all
following analyses.
1
The results of all analyses in Studies 1a and 1b were the same when using only the true/false item (rather than the mean
of true/false and acceptable/unacceptable).
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Self-reported emotions
How do religious thought violations make people
feel? We predicted that participants considering
heretical, i.e., religious false, thoughts would
experience greater negative emotions, primarily
characterised by disgust and anger, than partici-
pants considering religious true or factual
thoughts. To investigate this directly, disgust and
anger ratings were regressed onto variables repre-
senting statement type (factual = −0.5, religious =
0.5), veracity (true = −0.5, false = 0.5) and their
interaction.
Disgust. The statement type × veracity interaction
on feelings of disgust was estimated to be b= 1.13
([0.35, 1.91], t(262) = 2.86, p= .005) in Study 1a,
and b= 1.12 ([0.42, 1.82], t(277) = 3.13, p<.01)
in Study 1b. Self-reported disgust was higher for
religious false (Study 1a: Hedges’g= .77 [0.43,
1.12]; Study 1b: Hedges’g= .72 [0.39, 1.05]) and
religious true (Study 1a Hedge’sg= .51 [0.16,
0.87]; Study 1b: Hedge’sg= .46 [0.11, 0.81])
statements compared to factual false and factual
true statements, respectively. Overall, religious
false statements elicited highest reports of disgust
compared to other statement types in both studies
(see Figure 1a).
We next examined the moderating effect of
religiosity. In Study 1a, the three-way veracity ×
statement type × religiosity interaction on self-
reported disgust was estimated to be b= 0.38
([0.01, 0.75], t(258) = 2.03, p= .04). A simple
slopes analysis (Dawson & Richter, 2006) found
that, although all four slopes were themselves
significant (ts>2.80, ps<.001), the slope
comparing disgust to religious true vs. religious
false statements for highly religious participants
(+1 SD religiosity) was significantly steeper than
any of the other slopes (ts>2.30, ps<.02; see
Figure S1 in the Supplemental Materials). In
other words, people feel greater disgust to false
statements compared to true ones, but this differ-
ence is especially strong when a religious person is
considering a religious statement. There was no
three-way veracity × statement type × religiosity
interaction on disgust in Study 1b (b= 0.06
[−0.27, 0.38], t(273) = −0.35, p= .73).
Anger. The statement type × veracity interaction
on feelings of anger was estimated to be b= 1.14
([0.38, 1.91], t(262) = 2.95, p<.01) in Study 1a
and b= 1.04 ([0.36, 1.72], t(277) = 3.01, p<.01)
in Study 1b. Self-reported anger was higher for
religious false (Study 1a: Hedges’g= .73 [0.39,
1.08]; Study 1b: Hedges’g= .73 [0.40, 1.06]) and
religious true (Study 1a Hedge’sg= .41 [0.06,
0.77]; Study 1b: Hedge’sg= .38 [0.03, 0.73])
statements compared to factual false and factual
true statements, respectively. Overall, religious
false statements elicited highest reports of anger
compared to other statement types in both studies
(see Figure 1a). There was no significant three-
way veracity × statement type × religiosity interac-
tion on anger in Studies 1a or 1b (Study 1a:
b=0.35[−0.01, 0.72], t(258) = 1.91, p= .06;
Figure 1. Means for self-reported disgust and anger by statement type (factual vs. religious) and veracity (true vs. false) in (a) Study 1a,
(b) Study 1b and (c) Study 2b.
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Study 1b: b= 0.06 [−0.27, 0.38], t(273) = 0.35,
p= .73).
Moral judgements
The three moral judgement items were coded so
that higher values indicated harsher moral judge-
ment, and we computed a mean moral judgement
score (Study 1a Cronbach’sα= .86; Study 1b α=
.87). As expected, religious false statements eli-
cited the harshest moral judgements. In Study 1a,
the statement type × veracity interaction on moral
judgements was estimated to be (b= 1.15 [0.62,
1.69], t(262) = 4.24, p<.001). Importantly, the
religious false statements (M= 5.26 SD = 1.27)
were perceived as more immoral than the factual
false statements (M= 4.58, SD = 0.84; Hedges’
g= .64 [0.30, 0.98]), and the religious true
statements (M= 2.72, SD = 1.27) were perceived
as more moral than factual true statements (M=
3.18, SD = 1.02; Hedges’g= .40 [0.05, 0.76]).
Study 1b revealed the same statement type ×
veracity interaction (b= 1.11 [0.58, 1.65], t(277)
= 4.10, p<.001). The religious false statements
(M= 5.04 SD = 1.22) were perceived as more
immoral than the factual false statements (M=
4.55, SD = 0.97; Hedges’g= .44 [0.12, 0.77]),
and the religious true statements (M= 2.59,
SD = 1.31) were perceived as more moral than
the factual true statements (M= 3.21, SD = 1.02;
Hedges’g= .53 [0.18, 0.88]).
Does moral condemnation of religious false
statements depend on how religious one is? In
both studies, the veracity × statement type ×
religiosity interaction on moral judgements was
significant (Study 1a: b= 0.35 ([0.11, 0.60], t(258)
= 2.84, p<.01; Study 1b: b= 0.38 [0.14, 0.62],
t(273) = 3.17, p<.01). Simple slopes analyses of
both studies found that, although all four slopes
were themselves significant (ts>3.40, ps<.01),
the slope comparing moral judgement of religious
true vs. religious false statements for highly
religious participants (+1 SD religiosity) was sig-
nificantly steeper than any of the other slopes (ts>
2.40, ps<.02; see Figure 2). In other words,
people make harsher moral judgements of false
statements compared to true ones, but this
difference is amplified when a religious person is
considering a religious statement.
Contamination
Subjective feelings of contamination elicited by the
statements were measured in Study 1b only.
Contamination items were coded so that higher
values indicated stronger feelings of contamina-
tion, and the mean of the three items was
computed to create a composite contamination
score (Cronbach’sα= .85). Analyses revealed the
predicted statement type × veracity interaction (γ=
1.30 [0.85, 1.75], t(277) = 5.70, p<.001), driven
by the religious false statements eliciting stronger
feelings of contamination (M= 4.61, SD = 0.96)
than the factual false statements (M= 4.02, SD =
0.83, Hedges’g= .66 [0.33, 0.99]) and the
religious true statements eliciting less feelings of
Figure 2. Simple slopes for moral judgement by veracity (true
vs. false), statement type (factual vs. religious) and religiosity in (a)
Study 1a and (b) Study 1b.
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contamination (or more “purity”;M= 2.91, SD =
1.16) than the factual true statements (M= 3.62,
SD = 0.85, Hedges’g= .69 [0.33, 1.04]). When
examining religiosity as a moderator, the veracity ×
statement type × religiosity interaction on contam-
ination was estimated to be b= 0.35 ([0.16, 0.55],
t(273) = 3.52, p<.001). A simple slopes analysis
found that the slope comparing religious true to
religious false statements for highly religious (+1 SD
religiosity) was significantly steeper than any of the
other slopes (ts>4.30, ps<.001; see Figure S2 in
the Supplemental Materials). In other words,
people do not feel contaminated by false statements
in general but rather only those false statements that
violate closely held religious beliefs.
Predicting moral judgements
Participants in Studies 1a and 1b judged heretical
thoughts as immoral and reacted to such thoughts
with a mixture of disgust, anger and contamination.
Which of these feelings was responsible for their
moral judgements? If heretical thoughts truly taint
the mind, we should expect moral judgement to be
driven primarily by feelings of disgust and contam-
ination, rather than anger. To test this prediction,
we examined whether disgust or anger was the
better predictor of moral judgement and also used
structural equation models to estimate indirect
effects on moral judgement through disgust, anger
and contamination. We first used linear mixed
effects models (Bates, Maechler, Bolker, & Walker,
2014; Judd, Westfall, & Kenny, 2012) to estimate
the relationship between emotion and moral judge-
ment. For Study 1a, when moral judgement scores
were regressed onto self-reported disgust alone the
effect was estimated to be γ= 0.42 ([0.31, 0.54],
F(1, 13.38) = 53.29, p<.001). The effect of anger
alone was estimated to be γ= 0.38 ([0.31, 0.47],
F(1, 263.98) = 85.66, p<.001). Most important,
when disgust and anger were entered as the only
predictors, disgust, but not anger, remained a
strong predictor of judgement: disgust γ= 0.35
([0.19, 0.52], F(1, 63.04) = 17.09, p<.001); anger
γ= 0.08 ([−0.07, 0.23], F(1, 250.87) = 1.09,
p= .30). The effect of disgust was estimated to be
γ= 0.20 ([0.06, 0.34], F(1, 94.98) = 7.20, p<.01)
when simultaneously controlling for the effects of
all other emotions.
For Study 1b, when moral judgement scores
were regressed onto self-reported disgust alone the
effect was estimated to be γ= 0.48 ([0.37, 0.58],
F(1, 12.76) = 79.01, p<.001). The effect of anger
alone was estimated to be γ= 0.42 ([0.31, 0.52],
F(1, 9.89) = 64.97, p<.001). As in Study 1a,
disgust better predicted moral judgement over
anger when both variables were entered into the
model: disgust γ= 0.40 ([0.27, 0.54], F(1, 35.89)
= 32.71, p<.001); anger γ= 0.10 ([−0.02, 0.22],
F(1, 145.20) = 2.21, p= .14). The effect of disgust
on moral judgement maintained significance when
simultaneously controlling for the effects of all
other emotions: γ= 0.26 ([0.14, 0.38], F(1, 44.31)
= 17.28, p<.001).
These results support our prediction that dis-
gust played a larger role in moral judgement than
anger. However, our data allow us to answer a
further question: Is disgust responsible for the
effects of veracity, statement type and religiosity
on moral judgement? To test all of our Study 1a
predictions simultaneously, we used the R package
Lavaan (Rosseel, 2012) to fit a structural equation
(moderated mediation) model with disgust and
anger as simultaneous mediators between the
effects of veracity, statement type, religiosity and
their interactions on moral judgement (see Figure
S3a in the Supplemental Materials). The indirect
effect of the three-way veracity × statement type ×
religiosity interaction on moral judgement through
disgust was 0.015 [0.002, 0.03], but the indirect
effect through anger was only 0.002 [−0.01, 0.01],
consistent with the results of our linear mixed
models in suggesting that disgust played a larger
role in moral judgement than anger. The condi-
tional indirect effect of disgust was strongest for
religious participants considering religious state-
ments perceived as false.
2
2
We also tested a moderated mediation model examining a three-way (veracity × statement type × religiosity) interaction
through disgust and a two-way (veracity × statement type) interaction through anger. The pattern of results was the same as
reported here.
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In Study 1b, we were able to take this model
further by including contamination as an addi-
tional mediator of the relationship between heret-
ical thoughts and moral judgement. As in Study
1a, we tested all of our Study 1b predictions simul-
taneously by fitting a structural equation (moder-
ated sequential mediation) model to examine the
effects of veracity, statement type, religiosity and
their interactions on moral judgement through
disgust and anger simultaneously and, in turn,
sequentially through contamination. There were
no significant indirect effects of the veracity ×
statement type × religiosity interaction through
disgust (estimate = −0.001 [−0.01, 0.01]), anger
(estimate = 0.002 [−0.002, 0.007]), disgust se-
quentially through contamination (estimate = 0
[−0.005, 0.004]), nor anger sequentially through
contamination (estimate = 0.001 [−0.001, 0.004]).
However, the indirect effect of the three-way
interaction through contamination was statistically
significant (estimate = 0.04 [0.014, 0.063]). This
pattern is consistent with the individual Study 1b
results reported above, where we found a signific-
ant veracity × statement type × religiosity interac-
tion on self-reported contamination, but not
disgust or anger. We then fit a follow-up moder-
ated sequential mediation model excluding religi-
osity (see Figure S3b in the Supplemental
Materials). In this model the indirect effects of
the veracity × statement type interaction on moral
judgement were significant through disgust
(estimate = 0.04 [0.009, 0.073]), contamination
(estimate = 0.16 [0.09, 0.22]) and disgust sequen-
tially through contamination (estimate = 0.02
[0.003, 0.035]). Neither the indirect effects
through anger (estimate = 0.02 [−0.01, 0.04])
nor anger sequentially through contamination
(estimate = 0.01 [−0.005, 0.024]) were statistically
significant. These path coefficients suggest that
participants who read religious statements per-
ceived as false reported stronger feelings of disgust
relative to other kinds of statements. These
feelings of disgust led them to feel greater
contamination and, in turn, express harsher moral
judgements. This evidence suggests that disgust is
not being used synonymously with anger and that
disgust and anger can in fact be distinguished
from one another because only disgust is posi-
tively associated with subjective feelings of
contamination.
DISCUSSION
In Study 1, religious false (“heretical”) thoughts
evoked feelings of disgust. In both Studies 1a and
1b, religious false statements were associated with
increased disgust and anger, relative to other
statement types. Moreover, ratings of disgust to
the statement predicted later ratings of its immor-
ality, and this effect remained after controlling for
the influence of anger and all other emotions.
These results suggest that self-reported disgust has
a unique association with moral judgements of
thoughts that cannot be explained by feelings of
anger. Further, Study 1b found that disgust
produces harsher moral judgements in part due
to subjective feelings of contamination, suggesting
that people actually conceptualise their thoughts as
being unclean. This relationship was unique to
disgust, a key distinction implying that disgust has
specific connotations not shared with anger.
Important, effects on disgust (in Study 1a), moral
judgement (Studies 1a and 1b) and contamination
(Study 1b) were moderated by religiosity, but
effects on anger were not. For the strongly reli-
gious, heretical thoughts take on a special mean-
ing, characterised by feelings of disgust,
contamination and moral disapproval.
These findings suggest that heretical thoughts
elicit disgust, as these thoughts carry more harsh
moral judgement. But an important question
remains unanswered: is heretical disgust rooted in
a literal, physiological disgust response? Or, per-
haps heretical disgust is conceptually meaningful
as it symbolises a moral aversion to an undesirable
thought. We address the literal/symbolic nature of
heretical disgust in Study 2.
STUDY 2a AND 2b
Study 1 established that (1) people self-report
disgust in response to religious thought violations,
and (2) self-reported disgust is the best predictor
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of moral judgements of those thoughts, separable
from anger. In other words, people can feel
heretical disgust by merely contemplating ideas
contrary to religious beliefs. What remains unclear
is the nature of heretical disgust. Do religious
thought violations elicit literal physical disgust
(i.e., oral/nasal inhibition), or do people use
concepts of disgust and contamination to symbol-
ically represent feelings of moral aversion to
heretical thoughts? In two parts, Study 2 addressed
this question by measuring spontaneous facial
expressions during response to physical contam-
ination (Study 2a) and facial expressions during
heretical thoughts (Study 2b) using facial EMG.
The disgust expression is typically characterised by
a wrinkled nose and raised upper lip (Rozin,
Lowery, & Ebert, 1994), caused by activity of
the levator labii muscle (Tassinary & Cacioppo,
2000). Levator labii activity has shown to be
associated with bitter tastes (Chapman et al.,
2009), disgusting photographs (Chapman et al.,
2009), disgusting words (Niedenthal, Winkiel-
man, Mondillon, & Vermeulen, 2009), and also
unfairness (Chapman et al., 2009) and impure
actions (Cannon, Schnall, & White, 2011).
Another important facial signal of negative affect
is characterised by a scrunched/knitted brow
(Ekman, Sorenson, & Friesen, 1969), which is
caused by the corrugator supercilii muscle (Tas-
sinary & Cacioppo, 2000). Previous research has
linked corrugator supercilii muscle activity with
processing anger-related words (Niedenthal et al.,
2009) and harm violations (Cannon et al., 2011),
as well as experience of effort and general negative
affect (Cacioppo, Petty, Losch, & Kim, 1986;
Cacioppo, Petty, & Morris, 1985).
Study 2a measured facial expressions in
response to physical purity violations (e.g., rotting
meat, faeces), and Study 2b measured facial
expressions in response to religious thought viola-
tions (e.g., “There is no God”). First, the goal of
Study 2a was to establish that imagining violat‐
ions of physical purity does indeed elicit activity
in the levator labii muscle, responsible for the
curled upper lip typical of the disgust expression
and oral/ nasal inhibition. Participants were asked
to think about physical purity violations and harm
violations as activity in the levator labii and
corrugator supercilii (typical of the knitted brow)
were measured. Purity violations were all of a
physical nature (e.g., drinking a glass of warm
spoiled milk) designed to elicit oral/nasal inhibi-
tion. Next, Study 2b examined spontaneous facial
expressions to heretical thoughts. Participants
were asked to think about a series of factual and
religious statements as corrugator supercilii and
levator labii muscle activity was recorded. As in
Study 1, participants in Study 2b also self-reported
their emotional experience and the extent to which
each statement was perceived as immoral. If
religious thought violations elicit the same pattern
of facial muscle activity in Study 2b as thinking
about physical purity violations observed in Study
2a, this would provide evidence for the oral origins
of moral disgust (i.e., that religious thought
violations elicit an oral/nasal inhibition response).
On the other hand, if participants self-report that
they are “disgusted”but there is no evidence of an
oral/nasal inhibition response, then this would
provide evidence that participants are using the
word disgust metaphorically to express subjective
feelings of contamination, but that heretical dis-
gust is not embodied in physiological disgust.
STUDY 2a
Participants
Sixteen Christian undergraduate students were
recruited from the University of Illinois’course
credit subject pool (mean age = 18.56 years, SD =
0.73). Participant sample size was comparable to
similar facial EMG studies (e.g., Chapman et al.,
2009). A prescreening questionnaire was used to
recruit only participants that were cur-
rently affiliated with a Christian religion and
who reported that their religion was “quite
important”or “very important”to them. Self-
reported religious affiliations included 12 Catho-
lics and 4 Protestants. Participants were strongly
religious on average (M= 5.41, SD = 0.70 on a 7-
item, 7-point religiosity scale). We included as
many stimuli (statements) as time would allow in a
50-min study session (30). This sampling of
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stimuli thus resulted in 80% power to detect a
correlation (between mean self-reported emotion
and mean EMG activity for each statement) of at
least r= .49.
Procedure
Electromyographic data were recorded using
4-mm Ag/AgCl electrodes filled with electrode
gel. Muscle activity was sampled at a rate of 1000
Hz (band limited from 5 to 500 Hz) using the
BIOPAC MP150 acquisition system with a
BioNomadix two-channel EMG module. BIO-
PAC’s STP100C module was used along with
Empirisoft’s DirectRT software to record and
synchronise stimulus presentation. Participants’
skin was prepared and electrodes attached over
the levator labii and corrugator supercilii muscle
sites using Tassinary and Cacioppo’s(2000)
guidelines. The ground electrode was placed on
the top-centre of the forehead, and every effort
was made to reduce inter-electrode impedances to
less than 10 kΩ. To get accustomed to wearing
electrodes, participants next completed (without
any EMG data recorded) the same religiosity and
demographics items as in previous studies, along
with a 10-item personality inventory (Gosling,
Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003).
The main task consisted of 30 trials, and each
trial had four parts. First, a fixation cross (“+”)
appeared at the centre of the screen for 2 s.
Second, a statement describing 1 of 30 situations
appeared at the centre of the screen and partici-
pants also heard a recording of the statement over
their headphones. The 30 statements were
adapted from Cannon et al. (2011) and described
purity/harm virtues/vices (see Supplementary
Materials). Important, purity violations were all
literal/physical contaminations, e.g., “drinking a
glass of warm spoiled milk”, that should elicit oral/
nasal dyspepsia. Third, a screen appeared for 6 s
that read: “Please think about what you would
FEEL in this situation”. Finally, emotion rating
scales appeared on the screen one at a time in
randomised order and participants were asked to
indicate how much they experienced each of six
emotions as they thought about the situation
described (0 = not felt at all,6=very strongly
felt): disgust, anger, fear, sadness, surprise and
happiness. Each trial ended with a screen pre-
sented for 2 s that read: “Please wait”.
Results
Raw EMG signals were rectified and integrated
using a time constant of 5 ms. Facial muscle
responses were operationalised as the difference
between muscle activity before and after stimulus
onset. At each site, mean muscle activity for the
500-ms period prior to stimulus onset (i.e., the last
500 ms of the 2-s fixation cross) was subtracted
from the mean muscle activity during the 6-s
period after stimulus offset. This change score
thus controlled for baseline muscle activity and
was used in all subsequent analyses. Mixed effects
models treated both participants and stimuli as
random effects, including a random disgust slope
where relevant (Judd et al., 2012).
Self-reported emotions
First, we looked at the subjective (self-report)
emotions to physical purity and harm violations.
As expected, disgust was more strongly associated
with physical purity violations (M= 5.23, SD =
1.18) than harm violations (M= 3.51, SD = 2.19;
mean difference = −1.72 [−2.20, −1.23]). More-
over, self-reported anger was more strongly asso-
ciated with harm violations (M= 4.51, SD = 1.70)
than physical purity violations (M= 2.41, SD =
2.34; mean difference = −2.1 [−2.66, −1.54]).
Facial muscle activity
Next, we examined spontaneous facial expressions
to purity and harm violations. Consistent with
previous research, purity violations elicited activity
in the levator labii. Mean change in levator labii
activity in response to the physical purity violations
was estimated to be 0.0027 mV ([0.0015, 0.0038],
t(29.9) = 4.44, p<.01), and across the thirty
statements mean change in levator labii activity
was positively associated with mean self-reported
disgust (r= .45, p= .01). In other words, thinking
about physically contaminating behaviours elicited
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facial muscle activity consistent with oral/nasal
inhibition, and in turn this muscle activity was
associated with self-reported disgust. In contrast,
harm violations did not elicit any change in levator
labii activity (0.0004 mV ([−0.0008, 0.0016]). But
harm violations were associated with corrugator
activity. Mean change in corrugator supercilii
activity in response to harm violations was esti-
mated to be 0.0024 mV ([0.00006, 0.0048],
t(21.65) = 2.02, p= .06), and across the 30
statements mean change in corrugator supercilii
activity was positively associated with mean self-
reported anger (r= .39, p= .03) and sadness (r=
.39, p= .03).
STUDY 2b
Study 2a established that physical purity violations
elicit levator labii activity, typical of the disgust
expression. Study 2b was conducted to test
whether religious thought violations also elicit
lebvator labii activity.
Method
Thirty-eight Christian participants were recruited
for Study 2b from the University of Illinois’course
credit subject pool using the same prescreening
criteria as in Study 2a. Three participants were
excluded (for excessive coughing/sniffling, playing
on cell phone and not providing moral judge-
ments, respectively), leaving 35 participants (mean
age = 18.74 years, SD = 0.83) in the analysis.
Participants were 18 Catholics, 10 Protestants and
10 other Christians (e.g., Greek Orthodox) and
were strongly religious (M= 5.79, SD = 0.83). The
main task for Study 2b was identical to Study 2a,
with three exceptions: (1) 24 factual/religious
statements were used—again the most our 50-
min study session would allow, (2) the prompt
during the critical 6-s period of each trial read
“How does having this thought in your mind
make you FEEL?”, and (3) after completing the
main task participants read and heard all of the
statements again and made moral judgements
using the same scales as in Study 1. This sampling
of stimuli thus resulted in 80% power to detect a
correlation (between mean self-reported emotion
and mean EMG activity for each statement) of at
least r= .54. Participants also completed the three-
domain disgust scale (Tybur, Lieberman, &
Griskevicius, 2009) and the moral foundations
questionnaire (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2008).
Results
For the analyses in Study 2b, variables represent-
ing statement type, moral judgement and religio-
sity were created as in Study 1. Because all
participants were prescreened for religiosity, the
dichotomous veracity variable was created by
coding the a-priori false statements as false, and
the a-priori true statements as true.
3
EMG data
were prepared for analysis as in Study 2a.
Self-reported emotion
Self-reported emotions in response to religious
thought violations replicated the findings of Stud-
ies 1a and 1b. The religious false statements were
characterised by both disgust and anger. The
statement type × veracity interaction was estimated
to be γ= 2.68 for disgust ([2.05, 3.31], F(1, 19.98)
= 65.01, p<.001) and γ= 2.86 for anger ([2.23,
3.50], F(1, 19.98) = 72.90, p<.001). Moreover,
the religious false statements elicited more disgust
(mean difference = 2.63[2.18, 3.07]) and anger
(mean difference = 2.92 [2.47, 3.36]) than the
factual false statements (see Figure 1c). There were
no such differences in disgust (mean difference =
0.06 [−0.39, 0.50]) and anger (mean difference =
−0.05 [−0.50, 0.40]) reactions to the religious true
and factual true statements.
Moral judgements
Again replicating the effects from Study 1, regres-
sing moral judgement scores onto statement type,
3
We also analysed the data using participants’veracity ratings rather than the a-priori categories. The results were the
same as those using the a-priori categories whether the veracity factor was dichotomous (true vs. false) or continuous.
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veracity and their interaction revealed the expected
interaction (γ= 2.46 [2.02, 2.90], F(1, 19.96) =
107.94, p<.001). The religious false statements
were perceived as more immoral than the factual
false statements (mean difference = 1.10 [0.79,
1.42]), and the religious true statements were
perceived as more moral than the factual true
statements (mean difference = 1.36 [1.05, 1.67]).
Also replicating Studies 1a and 1b, when moral
judgement scores were regressed onto self-
reported disgust alone, the effect was estimated
to be γ= 0.20 ([0.13, 0.27], F(1, 63.59) = 31.43,
p<.001). The effect of anger alone was estimated
to be γ= 0.20 ([0.14, 0.25], F(1, 638.97) = 52.38,
p<.001. When both disgust and anger were
entered as predictors, disgust was a stronger
predictor of moral judgement than anger: disgust:
γ= 0.16 ([0.09, 0.23], F(1, 618.14) = 21.38, p<
.001); anger: γ= 0.08 ([0.01, 0.16], F(1, 710.55) =
5.19, p= .02). And when controlling for all other
emotions, the effect of disgust was estimated to be
γ= 0.14 ([0.06, 0.22], F(1, 117.48) = 10.24, p<
.01). In sum, religious false statements were
judged to be more immoral, and immorality was
best predicted by self-reported disgust.
Religiosity as moderator
As in Study 1, individual religiosity moderated the
relationship between self-reported disgust and
moral judgements. The three-way veracity ×
statement type × religiosity interaction on self-
reported disgust was estimated to be b= 0.65
([0.23, 1.06], F(1, 720.66) = 9.23, p<.01). The
three-way veracity × statement type × religiosity
interaction on moral judgements was estimated to
be b= 1.09 ([0.76, 1.41], F(1, 722.25) = 43.58,
p<.001). Participants high in religiosity rated
religious false statements as more disgusting and
more immoral than those lower in religiosity.
EMG results
Are religious thought violations also associated
with oral/nasal inhibition? Contrary to this hypo-
thesis, heretical thoughts did not elicit levator labii
activity (Figure 3). Levator labii muscle activity
in response to religious false statements was
estimated to be −.00004 mV ([−0.0005, 0.0004],
t(26.79) = −0.17, p= .86), and the only stimulus
category that reliably elicited a change in levator
labii muscle activity greater than zero was the
factual false statements (γ= 0.0014 mV [0.0007,
0.0020], t(24.25) = 4.06, p<.001; Figure 3).
Across the 24 statements mean change in levator
labii activity was not associated with any of the
self-reported emotional experiences nor moral
judgements.
Unexpectedly, heretical thoughts were margin-
ally associated with increased corrugator activity.
There was a marginal change in corrugator super-
cilii muscle activity in response to religious false
statements, estimated to be 0.0005 mV
([−0.00004, 0.0010], t(777.5) = 1.81, p= .07;
see Supplementary Materials), and across the 24
statements mean change in corrugator supercilii
activity was positively associated with harsher
moral judgements (r= .41, p= .05) and negatively
associated with happiness (r=−.49, p= .01).
Change in corrugator supercilii activity during the
first 3 s of the 6-s interval in response to religious
false statements was estimated to be 0.0007 mV
([0.0002, 0.0012], t(776.6) = 2.75, p= .006; see
Figure S4 in the Supplemental Materials). The
estimated change in corrugator supercilii muscle
activity in response to factual false statements was
0.00003 mV ([−0.0007, 0.0008], t(777.5) = 0.07,
p= .94).
STUDIES 2a AND 2b: DISCUSSION
The goal of Study 2 was to compare spontaneous
facial expressions elicited by physical contaminants
and heretical thoughts. First, Study 2a confirmed
that thinking about physical purity violations is
associated with levator labii muscle activity, rep-
licating previous research on disgust expressions.
But in Study 2b, heretical thoughts were not
associated with levator labii activity. In other
words, thinking about physical impurity elicited a
spontaneous disgust expression, but thinking her-
etical thoughts did not. Importantly, these differ-
ences cannot be explained by subjective feelings of
disgust, as participants in Studies 2a and 2b each
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reported greater feelings of disgust to both phys-
ical purity violations and heretical thoughts,
respectively. Study 2b observed similar effects on
self-reported emotions as observed in Studies 1a
and 1b: heretical thoughts elicited self-reported
feelings of both disgust and anger, but disgust
predicted moral judgement of heretical thoughts
independently of anger. In other words, heretical
disgust is a meaningful moral emotion, distinct
from anger. But the EMG results suggest that
heretical disgust is not embodied in the same
way as physical disgust. Rather, the divergence
between physiology and self-report suggests that
the meaning of heretical disgust is symbolic/
metaphorical. Participants referred to conceptual
knowledge about disgust/contamination to give
meaning to their abstract (immoral) thoughts
without literally experiencing oral/ nasal inhibi-
tion. We discuss the implications further in the
General Discussion.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Religious beliefs are often associated with purity,
and ideas that contradict those beliefs might seem
to threaten purity of mind. This research set out to
Figure 3. Study 2b (a) levator labii activity and (b) corrugator supercilii activity by statement type (factual vs. religious) and veracity
(true vs. false). Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
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examine whether contemplation of heretical
thoughts elicits disgust. We found evidence that
heretical thoughts are indeed associated with self-
reported feelings of disgust, and disgust was
meaningfully distinct from anger as a moral
emotion. But heretical disgust was not physically
embodied in oral/ nasal inhibition. We discuss the
evidence from the studies and implications in
greater detail below.
First, heretical thoughts were associated with
self-reported disgust as a moral emotion. In
Studies 1a, 1b and 2b, people reported disgust to
religious false statements but not to factual false
statements. This suggests that these feelings of
disgust represent a response to heretical ideas, and
not a general rejection of “false”ideas. Further,
self-reported disgust to heretical thoughts was
associated with harsh moral judgement of those
thoughts, indicating that disgust is used as a moral
emotion. People tend to treat content of mind as
separate from the physical world (Bloom, 2004),
and so perhaps ideas of taint and contamination
might not be relevant to the mind. But these
studies show that people can treat the content of
mind as something that can be contaminated and
become disgusting.
Second, we also found evidence that heretical
disgust is distinct from anger as a moral emotion.
People reported similar levels of anger and disgust
in response to religious false statements, consistent
with previous findings that disgust and anger are
co-activated as moral emotions (Gutierrez,
Giner-Sorolla, & Vasiljevic, 2012). However,
self-reported disgust predicted moral judgement
independently of anger. This suggests that disgust
and anger are meaningfully distinct moral emo-
tions (at least in response to heretical thoughts)
and that disgust is not merely a synonym for
anger. Study 1b further found that disgust is
uniquely characterised by feelings of contamina-
tion. In other words, people do treat heretical
thoughts as dirty and a threat to purity of mind.
Previous research on moral disgust has focused
almost exclusively on immoral behaviours, making
it unclear whether abstract thoughts—independ-
ent of overt action—can be perceived as disgust-
ing/contaminating. But these studies show that
people can treat the content of mind as something
that can be contaminated, that marks those
thoughts as aversive and a threat to moral well-
being.
Finally, EMG evidence in Study 2 suggests
that heretical disgust is not embodied in oral/nasal
inhibition. Whereas thinking about physical con-
taminants in Study 2a was associated with levator
labii activity (the prototypical disgust expression),
religious thought violations in Study 2b did not
elicit levator labii activity, though people did
report feelings of disgust. Instead, religious
thought violations were more strongly associated
with corrugator supercilii muscle activity, which
was associated more generally with self-reported
negative affect. How should we best interpret
these results? Do participants truly experience
disgust to heretical thoughts? According to the
“oral origins”hypothesis, moral disgust evolved
from physiological disgust to literal contaminants,
and so is rooted in the same disgust mechanism
with the same corresponding outputs (e.g., physi-
ology, behaviour and facial expression; Chapman
& Anderson, 2013; Rozin et al., 2008; Tybur
et al., 2009). However, the EMG data suggest
that self-reported disgust is not embodied in
physical disgust, i.e., heretical disgust did not
produce oral/nasal inhibition. Rather, the present
studies suggest that disgust in response to religious
thought violations is used metaphorically/symbol-
ically to represent the threat and aversion to
heretical ideas (Royzman & Kurzban, 2011).
But to say that heretical disgust is used
metaphorically still does not account for why the
corrugator supercilii (responsible for the knitted
brow) was activated in response to heretical
thoughts. Do people really feel anger to heretical
thoughts but mislabel it as disgust? Not necessar-
ily. Corrugator activity has been shown to be
associated with anger responses, but is not limited
to anger. For example, feelings of effort and
confusion also elicit corrugator activity (Rozin &
Cohen, 2003). Corrugator activity may be best
characterised as an expression of general negative
affect that includes both anger and disgust. The
hypothesis that moral disgust is an expansion of
physical disgust is based on the view that disgust is
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an innate and discrete emotion (Ekman, 1992;
Ekman & Cordaro, 2011). But an alternative
perspective argues that emotions are not innate
and distinct “natural kinds”(Barrett, 2006), rather,
that the subjective experience of emotion (includ-
ing disgust) is better understood as a conceptua-
lisation of more basic psychological “ingredients”
(Cameron, Lindquist, & Gray, 2015; Lindquist,
2013). From this perspective, discrete emotional
experiences are constructed, and general feelings of
pleasure/displeasure are made meaningful by con-
ceptual knowledge of the specific situation. This
perspective may help explain the strong co-activa-
tion of disgust and anger in response to religious
thought violations. But unlike anger, heretical
disgust may be constructed (at least in part) by
concepts of contamination.
Limitations and future studies
This research provides evidence that heretical
disgust is used metaphorically to represent moral
aversion to rejected religious beliefs. But we
acknowledge that this research is not the final
word on the metaphorical vs. oral origins of moral
disgust more generally. Although disgust’s unique
facial expression provides some of the best evid-
ence for its status as a basic discrete emotion
(Keltner & Ekman, 2000), the present studies
did not find evidence of the prototypical disgust
expression in response to religious thought viola-
tions. However, it is possible that this was due to
methodological limitations in the measurement of
facial expressions. Subjectively, disgust is asso-
ciated with a distinct bodily sensation (Nummen-
maa, Glerean, Hari, & Hietanen, 2014). Thus,
perhaps some other method besides facial EMG is
better suited to detect the manifestation of disgust
as an innate and discrete psychological mechan-
ism, although previous efforts to find such a unique
signal of disgust have proven elusive (Cacioppo,
Berntson, Larsen, Poehlmann, & Ito, 2000).
Another possibility is that the metaphorical nature
of moral disgust is unique to moral thought viola-
tions, whereas responses to immoral actions elicit
physical repulsion (e.g., Chapman et al., 2009).
Finally, though Study 1 used relatively diverse
samples of US participants using Amazon’s Mech-
anical Turk (Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling,
2011), the facial EMG studies were limited to
Christian college undergraduate students. We
selected religious participants because it is religious
belief that imbues the heretical statements with
moral value. And indeed, religiosity moderated the
effects of moral judgement, disgust and contam-
ination. But not all religious groups moralise the
content of mind in the same way (e.g., Cohen &
Rozin, 2001; Kim, Zeppenfeld, & Cohen, 2013).
Thus, an important area of future research will be
to examine whether the findings presented here
are robust across demographic variations including
age, sex and religious affiliation.
CONCLUSION
Here we have demonstrated that religious thought
violations—completely independent of overt beha-
viour—are perceived as disgusting and contamin-
ating, particularly among religious people.
Heretical disgust is not synonymous with anger,
but disgust is uniquely associated with subjective
feelings of contamination and uniquely predicts
moral judgements. Heretical disgust is also not a
direct extension of physical disgust, because it was
not associated with oral/nasal inhibition. Instead
heretical disgust is best understood as a metaphor
that gives concrete meaning to the abstract
dangers of heretical ideas.
Acknowledgments
We thank members of Ryan Ritter’s dissertation com-
mittee—Dov Cohen, Kurt Gray, Lawrence Hubert and
Michael Kraus—for providing valuable feedback
throughout this research project and on earlier versions
of this manuscript, and two anonymous reviewers for
feedback on an earlier manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the
authors.
RITTER ET AL.
16 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2015
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Funding
This research was supported by the John Templeton
Foundation [grant number 29104] awarded to Jesse
Preston.
Supplemental data
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.
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