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Slimy worms or sticky kids

How caregiving tasks and gender identity attenuate disgust response

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2020

Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz Open the ORCID record for Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz [Opens in a new window]  and
Amanda Friesen Open the ORCID record for Amanda Friesen [Opens in a new window]
Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Amanda Friesen
Affiliation:
Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis
*
Correspondence: Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz, Department of Political Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Email: aleksks@illinois.edu
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Abstract

Disgust is derived from evolutionary processes to avoid pathogen contamination. Theories of gender differences in pathogen disgust utilize both evolutionary psychological and sociocultural perspectives. Drawing on research that suggests that masculine and feminine gender identities are somewhat orthogonal, we examine how gender identity intersects with pathogen disgust. In addition, building on evolutionary psychological and sociocultural accounts of how caregiving and parental investment affect pathogen disgust, we present a new measure of caregiving disgust and compare its properties across gender, parental status, and political ideology with those of a conventional pathogen disgust measure. This registered report finds that how masculinity and femininity affect disgust varies by gender, disgust domain, and their intersection; that parental status effects vary by disgust domain but not gender; that reframing disgust in terms of caregiving eliminates the gender gap in disgust; and that the caregiving frame unexpectedly strengthens the relationship between disgust and political ideology.

Keywords

DisgustGenderPolitical ideologyParenthood
Type
Article
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 39 , Special Issue 2: Special Issue: Disgust and Political Attitudes , Fall 2020 , pp. 167 - 186
Copyright
© Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 2020

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