The embodied roots of ideology: Interoceptive Sensibility Moderates the Link Between Disgust Sensitivity and Political Ideology

Where does political ideology come from? Past research linked stronger physiological responses to threat and disgust with conservatism, suggesting a neurobiological basis for ideology. However, replication failures cast doubt on a direct link between physiology and political attitudes. Given interoception’s role in awareness and emotion regulation, we tested whether interoceptive sensibility (i.e., awareness of internal bodily states) moderates the relationship between disgust sensitivity and ideology. Using survey data from 632 participants, we found that disgust sensitivity predicted conservative ideology, but this association was moderated by interoceptive sensibility. Among those with lower interoception, higher disgust sensitivity increased the likelihood of identifying as conservative, and lower disgust with being liberal. This relationship disappeared among those with higher interoception. We suggest individuals with lower interoception are more susceptible to socially constructed associations between physiological states and ideology. These findings lay the groundwork for more mechanistic, replicable research on psychophysiological antecedents of political cognition.