Human-human chain of moral disgust

An object that has been in physical contact with an immoral person is contaminated with the characteristics of the immoral person even after a single instance of contact (contagion of moral disgust). We refuse and are disgusted by the object. Previous studies have examined the contagion of moral disgust from person to objects, but the occurrence of contagion from person to person has not yet been examined. We examined whether moral disgust would contaminate third parties via physical contact. Participants were shown a video in which an experimenter shook hands with a murderer or an office worker. The participants were asked to shake hands with and have a conversation with the experimenter. The response time was recorded, and the participants were asked to assess impressions about the experimenter after the session was over. The results mostly supported our hypothesis. The experimenter was evaluated as more disgusting by the group that was shown the murderer handshaking video than the one that was shown an office worker handshaking video. In addition, the length of time that passed before the handshake with the experimenter was related to individual disgust sensitivity in the murderer video condition. This study shows the possibility that notions of moral disgust contaminate a neutral person who comes in contact with an immoral person.