The relationships between avoidance toward prison work product, disgust sensitivity, moral foundations, and pollution avoidance

Abstract

People are often unwilling to approach something that they perceive to be contaminated. Perceived contamination is associated with disgust and can be explained using the concept of magical contagion. As disgust is associated with the morality of purity, the role of disgust in the relationship between morality and the perception of contaminated things needs to be scrutinized. This study investigated how people are motivated to avoid something that they perceive to be contaminated with the Moral Foundations Theory as its theoretical framework and prison work products as the study object. In addition to the traditionally used scale to measure one’s concerned moral foundation(s), the moral values regarding purity and religiosity in a specifically Japanese context were measured using the Purity Orientation–Pollution Avoidance Scale, which has four subscales: Mental Purity, Respect for Religion, Bodily Purity, and Pathogen Avoidance. The results reveal that contamination-related disgust mediates the relationships between the Respect for Religion subscale and avoidance toward prison work products, as well as between the Pathogen Avoidance subscale and avoidance toward prison work products. The present study was novel in that it clarifies the relationship involving morality, disgust, and avoidance. The implications of these findings tap into some topics involving cultural differences.