The Interaction Between Disgust and Facial Attractiveness on Perceived Psychological Distance

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The present experiments seeks to investigate how two competing motivational signals-- state disgust and facial attractiveness-- interact to shape perceived psychological distance measures (more specifically, preferred interpersonal distance and perceived psychological similarity). The present work is rooted in Construal Level Theory and the behavioral immune system, which suggest that individuals rely on social cues to inform interpersonal distance preferences and how psychologically similar unknown others feel to the self. Existing work demonstrates that disgust enhances perceived pathogen sensitivity and therefore tends to promote avoidance and/or distancing strategies, whereas facial attractiveness conveys greater perceived health cues/reduced perceived pathogen risk and therefore tends to promote enhanced psychological proximity. However, it remains unclear how these two cues interact to inform perceived psychological distance. The central aim of this study is to explore whether disgust may diminish the proximity-enhancing effects conferred by facial attractiveness. More broadly, the present investigation seeks to address how appetitive versus aversive motivations compete during social perception. To address this question, we employ a mixed-factorial design in which participants are randomly assigned to either a disgust condition or a control condition (between-subject) and are asked to evaluate facial stimuli categorized into low- and high-attractiveness categories (within-subject) on several trait characteristics, such as attractiveness. The key manipulation involves incidental disgust through malodor exposure (butyric acid), an odor cited in prior literature to resemble rancid food and/or vomit, therefore acting as a pathogen-relevant cue. Manipulation checks are embedded at the beginning and end of the malodor exposure, including state emotion and state pathogen sensitivity questionnaires. The primary outcomes capture two dimensions of perceived psychological distance. Our primary outcome variable, preferred interpersonal distance, represents the spatial dimension and is measured behaviorally in virtual reality using active and passive stop-distance tasks. Our secondary outcome variable, perceived psychological similarity, represents the social-relational dimension and is measured with both a visual Inclusion-of-Other-in-Self scale and a verbal similarity rating. Together, these measures allow us to assess both how close they prefer a target to be in physical space, and how psychologically similar participants perceive themselves relative to a target. As secondary investigations, we also plan to explore autonomic nervous system activity, trait disgust sensitivity, and situational pathogen avoidance. Overall, the present work provides the first investigation of how pathogen-avoidance motives and attraction-relevant social value jointly shape how individuals mentally represent distance from unfamiliar others.

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