How Disgust Affects Romantic Attraction: the Influence of Moods on Judgments of Attractiveness

Abstract

Facial attractiveness is an important part of our initial judgments of people. Relatedly, the emotion disgust is one of the most adaptive emotions as it helps keep us away from potentially dangerous objects. The current experiment examined whether or not being disgusted created an avoidance behavior, in the form of lower attractiveness scores, of non-disfigured individuals similar to avoidance behavior towards individuals who are disfigured. Disgust was induced by showing participants a series of disgusting photos prior to making attractiveness ratings of potential mating targets. It was found that individuals who were disgusted rated photos significantly lower than participants who received a neutral mood induction. Potential explanations for this finding are discussed.