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Policing the Perimeter: Disgust and Purity in Democratic Debate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2012

Peter Hatemi  and
Rose McDermott
Peter Hatemi
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Rose McDermott
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Abstract

We explicate the precise role that one specific emotion, disgust, plays in generating political acrimony. We do this by identifying the link between the different dimensions along which moral judgments are made by those espousing different political ideologies and the different emotions which undergird these evaluations. These assessments reliably track along liberal and conservative dimensions and are linked to the way values associated with purity and sanctity elicit greater degrees of disgust among conservatives. Here, we review a growing literature showing how disgust affects the psychology of politics through its influence on the cognitive and emotional processes that govern judgments of morality, as well as its direct impact on specific policy preferences. We then apply these findings to the nature and tenor of political discourse and suggest some ways that disgust might affect the character and function of democratic debate and tolerance. Finally, we discuss what these findings mean for public policy.

Type
Features
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , October 2012 , pp. 675 - 687
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2012 

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