Political Affiliation and Moral Transgressions Influence on Disgust Sensitivity and Orthorexia Scores
Location
FA-202
Department
Psychology
Abstract
Disgust is a primary emotion in humans, originating as a defense mechanism of the body to reject potentially deleterious food from consumption and digestion by oral expulsion. Disgust has evolved to activate by various physical as well as psychological stimuli such as moral offenses. Orthorexia is an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating, a rejection of food items created by perceived harm to one’s well-being and diet. The Disgust Scale measures disgust sensitivity and tests such as Bratman’s Orthorexia test and ORTO-15 are psychometric tools for orthorexia. Prior research has focused on the physiological elicitors of disgust, with some literature focusing on psychological factors such as the influence of moral judgements. This study is interested in examining the effect of political affiliation and moral transgressions on disgust sensitivity and orthorexia scale scores. Data will be collected via a Qualtrics survey, distributed to Psychology students by SONA. Political affiliation will be assessed with the Political Consistency Scale, a series of conservative and liberal statements, presented to the participants as a Likert scale, which will place them in one of three categories: conservative, moderate and liberal. Moral transgressions will be measured with statements and vignettes and will be broken down into two categories: wrongdoing agent and suffering victim. The next section will contain the Revised Disgust Scale to evaluate disgust sensitivity. ORTO-15 and the Bratman Orthorexia test will be used to calculate the orthorexia score. The aim of the study is to further research psychological factors of moral judgements on disgust sensitivity by evaluating political affiliation and moral transgressions. There is limited research on orthorexia and this study has the possibility to add to the literature. A relationship between disgust and orthorexia has not been established but there is reason to believe there could be a link between the two, as they both deal with rejection of food; a correlation analysis will be performed to assess the relationship between disgust sensitivity and orthorexia scores.
Faculty Sponsor
Amanda Dykema-Engblade, Northeastern Illinois University
Political Affiliation and Moral Transgressions Influence on Disgust Sensitivity and Orthorexia Scores
FA-202
Disgust is a primary emotion in humans, originating as a defense mechanism of the body to reject potentially deleterious food from consumption and digestion by oral expulsion. Disgust has evolved to activate by various physical as well as psychological stimuli such as moral offenses. Orthorexia is an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating, a rejection of food items created by perceived harm to one’s well-being and diet. The Disgust Scale measures disgust sensitivity and tests such as Bratman’s Orthorexia test and ORTO-15 are psychometric tools for orthorexia. Prior research has focused on the physiological elicitors of disgust, with some literature focusing on psychological factors such as the influence of moral judgements. This study is interested in examining the effect of political affiliation and moral transgressions on disgust sensitivity and orthorexia scale scores. Data will be collected via a Qualtrics survey, distributed to Psychology students by SONA. Political affiliation will be assessed with the Political Consistency Scale, a series of conservative and liberal statements, presented to the participants as a Likert scale, which will place them in one of three categories: conservative, moderate and liberal. Moral transgressions will be measured with statements and vignettes and will be broken down into two categories: wrongdoing agent and suffering victim. The next section will contain the Revised Disgust Scale to evaluate disgust sensitivity. ORTO-15 and the Bratman Orthorexia test will be used to calculate the orthorexia score. The aim of the study is to further research psychological factors of moral judgements on disgust sensitivity by evaluating political affiliation and moral transgressions. There is limited research on orthorexia and this study has the possibility to add to the literature. A relationship between disgust and orthorexia has not been established but there is reason to believe there could be a link between the two, as they both deal with rejection of food; a correlation analysis will be performed to assess the relationship between disgust sensitivity and orthorexia scores.