The embodied roots of disgust: exploring the link between disgust sensitivity, interoception and political ideology

Where does political ideology come from? Early research in political neuroscience has linked stronger physiological responses to threat and disgust with conservatism, implying a neurobiological basis of ideology, beyond societal factors. However, recent replication failures challenge the idea of a direct connection between physiological reactions and political attitudes. Given the role of interoception in body-awareness and emotional regulation, we investigated whether the relationship between disgust and political ideology is moderated by interoceptive sensibility (i.e., one’s ability to be attuned to their internal bodily states). Using survey data from 632 U.S. participants (321 Democrats, 311 Republicans), we show that when people have higher interoceptive sensibility, their political ideology is not driven by their disgust sensitivity. It is only when interoceptive sensibility is low that disgust sensitivity plays a significant role in political ideology: higher disgust sensitivity increases the likelihood of identifying as Republican, while lower disgust increases the likelihood of being Democrat. We propose that individuals with higher interoceptive sensibility rely more on physiological signals to process emotions like disgust. As a result, their ideological differences are less shaped by internalized cultural beliefs about what is disgusting and instead reflect their actual physiological experience. In contrast, those with lower interoception are more susceptible to socially constructed associations, relying more on ‘social priors’ to interpret their physiological states. This research highlights the importance of interoception in political cognition, offering a novel perspective on the psychophysiological underpinnings of political ideology, paving the way for replicable and causal studies.