An orderly personality partially explains the link between trait disgust and political conservatism

ABSTRACT

Individuals who are more easily disgusted tend to be more politically conservative. Individuals who have a preference for order also tend to be more politically conservative. In the present research, we hypothesised that these three variables are psychologically interrelated. Specifically, trait disgust encourages a generalised search for order, which, in turn, encourages the endorsement of political positions that aim to maintain societal order. Taking an individual differences approach, we operationalised the preference for order via Orderliness, one aspect of the Big Five trait Conscientiousness. Across six samples (total N = 1485), participants completed measures of trait disgust, aspect/trait personality, and political orientation. Analyses revealed that Orderliness was a consistent mediator of the association between trait disgust and conservatism. Analyses of subscales of disgust revealed preliminary evidence that Orderliness most consistently mediated the relationships between Contamination, Pathogen, and Sexual disgust and conservatism. These data suggest that disgust-sensitive people extend their preference for order in the physical environment (e.g. tidying up one's room) to the sociopolitical environment (e.g. strengthening traditional norms). The present findings illustrate one way in which emotional, cognitive, and personality processes work together to influence political orientation.

KEYWORDS:

• Trait disgust
• personality
• conservatism
• Orderliness
• political ideology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 It is somewhat surprising that DS-R Core disgust was not significantly correlated with conservatism, given that the construct of Core disgust is very similar to Contamination and Pathogen disgust. One possible explanation for this finding is that these three subscales may tap into subtly different constructs. However, little is known about whether such differences exist, so future research is needed to explain the discrepant findings regarding conservatism.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.