Disgust and mating strategy

Abstract

An evolutionary task analysis predicts a connection between disgust and human mating, two important but currently disconnected areas of psychology. Because short-term mating strategies involve sex with multiple partners after brief temporal durations, such a strategy should be difficult to pursue in conjunction with high levels of sexual disgust. On this basis, we hypothesized that individuals with a stronger proclivity for short-term mating would exhibit dispositionally lower levels of sexual disgust. Two independent studies provided strong support for this hypothesis: among both men and women, an orientation toward short-term mating was associated with reduced levels of sexual disgust, but not with suppressed moral or pathogen disgust. Our discussion highlights an unexpected finding and suggests important questions for future research.