Consenting to counter-normative sexual acts: Differential effects of consent on anger and disgust as a function of transgressor or consenter

Abstract

Anger and disgust may have distinct roles in sexual morality; here, we tested hypotheses regarding the distinct foci, appraisals, and motivations of anger and disgust within the context of sexual offenses. We conducted four experiments in which we manipulated whether mutual consent (Studies 1–3) or desire (Study 4) was present or absent within a counter-normative sexual act. We found that anger is focused on the injustice of non-consensual sexual acts, and the transgressor of the injustice (Studies 1 and 3). Furthermore, the sexual nature of the act was not critical for the elicitation of anger—as anger also responded to unjust acts of violence (Study 3). By contrast, we hypothesised and found that disgust is focused on whether or not a person voluntarily engaged in, desired or consented to a counter-normative sexual act (Studies 2–4). Appraisals of abnormality and degradation were the primary appraisals of disgust, and the sexual nature of the act was a critical elicitor of disgust (Study 3). A final study ruled out victimisation as the mechanism of the effect of consent on disgust and indicated that the consenter's sexual desire was the mechanism (Study 4). Our results reveal that anger and disgust have differential roles in consent-related sexual offenses due to the distinct appraisals and foci of these emotions.

Keywords:

• Disgust
• Anger
• Consent
• Condemnation
• Morality
• Sexuality
• Bodily-norm violation
• Injustice

Notes

1. Outside of the social-moral domain, disgust of course plays a large role in guarding the body against disease and other contaminants that might cause illness, particularly via oral ingestion (Curtis, Aunger, & Rabie, 2004; Rozin, Haidt, & McCauley, 1993).

2. Although we are unaware of any empirical evidence that directly bears on this assertion, one preliminary study we conducted may be illuminating in this respect. We had 48 adult American participants imagine a young man with a deviant sexual desire (e.g., the man wanted to have sex with a dead woman's body or to have sex with his grandmother's 90-year-old female friend), but that the man never acted upon the desire. Participants rated the extent to which the man had a deviant character, and how disgusted and angry they were. We found that participants were more disgusted (M = 5.63, SD = 2.58) than angry (M = 3.13, SD = 2.46), t_{repeated samples} (47) = 7.49, p < .001, and that appraisals of deviant character and disgust (controlling for anger) were correlated, r(45) = .58, p < .001, while deviant character and anger (controlling for disgust) were not correlated, r(45) = .19, p = .188. The results of this preliminary study, though correlational, provide initial evidence that disgust may be more person-focused and desire-focused than is anger, at least within the domain of sexual-morality.

3. We set aside the controversial claim that some self-directed sexual acts (e.g., masturbation) may be construed by some individuals as transgressive. Self-directed sexual acts are generally performed with the implicit consent of the actor/recipient (except perhaps under very unusual circumstances—for example, alien-hand syndrome), and therefore fell outside the purview of this present paper.

4. Please contact the authors for the full vignettes presented in this research.

5. Measures of political orientation were included in basic demographics for all studies on account of past research linking political conservatism and disgust sensitivity (e.g., Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom, 2009). We assessed political orientation either on a 1–7 or 1–9 scale with increasing scores representing greater conservatism. Analysis of political orientation was peripheral to our research aims and therefore will not be reported in detail here. In general, political orientation was unrelated to disgust levels and transgressor/consenter condemnation, across the studies, and, with one exception (Study 2), failed to interact with consent to affect either disgust or condemnation. Please contact the authors for details. A measure of disgust sensitivity was also included in Study 1 (and only Study 1) for exploratory purposes, but had little bearing on the results and therefore will not be discussed further.

6. When disgust was not controlled for, anger was significantly affected by consent, F(1, 71) = 11.40, p < .001, , with more anger when consent was withdrawn (M = 3.74, SE = .29) than present (M = 2.39, SE = .28). When anger was not controlled for, disgust was also significantly affected by consent in a similar direction, but to a lesser extent (M_non-consent = 5.53, SE = .27 vs. M_consent = 4.70, SE = .26), F(1, 71) = 4.97, p = .03, .

7. An ANOVA, not controlling for anger, revealed that participants experienced marginally more disgust when Donna consented to the act than when she did not consent, F(1, 77) = 2.99, p = .088, .

8. Anger and disgust were correlated, r(170) = .60, p < .01.

9. When entering anger as the DV, not controlling for disgust, the effect of violation type on anger was non-significant, F(1, 166) = .75, p = .39, , but there was a main effect of consent, F(1, 166) = 40.18, p < .001, , and a significant interaction effect, F(1, 166) = 3.93, p < .05, .

10. When entering disgust as the DV, not controlling for anger, there was a significant main effect of transgression type, F(1, 166) = 24.66, p <.001, , with more disgust directed at the transgressor for the sexual offense compared to the violent offense. There was also a significant main effect of consent, F(1, 166) = 4.04, p < .05, . However, the interaction of transgression and consent was not at all significant, F < 1, p = .91.

11. When the analysis is repeated controlling for violation type, abnormality is still a significant mediator. In a final analysis entering violation type as the predictor, neither of the appraisals could account for the difference in disgust across the different violation types.

12. Anger and disgust were correlated, r(170) = .65, p < .01.

13. When disgust towards the consenter was entered as the dependent variable, not controlling for anger, there was a marginal effect of violation type, F(1, 166) = 2.91, p =.09, , a significant effect of consent, F(1, 166) = 5.74, p < .05, , and the critical interaction between consent and violation type was significant, F(1, 166) = 6.47, p < .05, .

14. Technically, there was no victim in Study 1, as the man's wife was deceased at the time of the act. But the results showed that participants construed the man's actions as harming the “integrity” of his wife when she withdrew the request, so arguably participants perceived there to be a victim in Study 1 as well.

15. We treated both avoidance and punishment items as a single measure as they loaded onto one factor. Additionally, when analysing the avoidance and punishment items separately the results were the same.

16. Disgust was also not a mediator of condemnation when the desire manipulation was entered as the predictor or when both anger and disgust were entered as simultaneous mediators.