The Disgust of Authoritarianism

What the sense of smell can reveal about the moment we’re in.

On Oct 12, 2016, about one month before the U.S. Presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, a group of cognitive neuroscientists from Sweden and Italy conducted a third in a series of studies looking into a potential link between sensitivity to disgusting smells and authoritarianism.

They hypothesized that something called body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) could be linked to authoritarianism since chemo-signaling - an ancient biological system that regulates social interactions and helps organisms avoid disease - shares key features with authoritarian tendencies.

In the study, they asked a diverse group of 391 people a series of questions to determine how sensitive they were to body odor; what level of disgust they had. They asked participants to rate how disgusted they are by various events, such as seeing someone eat vanilla ice cream with ketchup on it, or licking a used but cleaned fly swatter. The questionnaire also described different situations related to disgusting body-related odors such as sweat and poop. They asked people, for example, “You use a public toilet after a stranger. It smells strongly of their poop. Rate how disgusting it is on a scale of 1 to 5.” They then followed up with a series of questions about their political views.

In the first two studies the scientists had already found that the more disgusted one was by body odors, the more positively this related to authoritarianism. Then in this third study, they were able to show a positive association between body odor disgust sensitivity and support for Donald Trump.

Of course, not every person who voted for Donald Trump supports authoritarianism. That would be absurd. But stay with me here, if you will.

If you think about it, smelling something that is perceived as disgusting is an ancient, biological warning signal that has helped to keep us alive. Disgust has led us to avoid the unknown and we almost always think that unfamiliar smells are bad.

What the study does seem to point to is that the feelings of disgust about body odors reveal our deep-seated fears, values, and views of other people. Studies have shown that people who are easily disgusted tend to dislike contact with strangers, and they are particularly afraid of contracting diseases. They also often think that different groups of people should be kept apart and shouldn’t mix with each other.

Republican National Convention, Milwaukee, Wisconsin July 2024.

A New Type of Authoritarianism?

In a recent article out of the University of California, Berkeley, researchers coined a term for the style of politics of today’s leaders such as U.S. President Donald Trump, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán: Authoritarian Populism.

The article states that unlike pure authoritarianism where they often suppress political opposition, spread disinformation, fuel political violence and turn historically independent institutions into political actors that will help achieve their agenda (sound familiar?!), authoritarian populism has a worldview “almost as if it were like binoculars. Through one lens there’s the threat of an identity-based out-group. Through the other, there’s a deep-rooted struggle between the people and elites. The sense of fear and antagonism these lenses promote leads people to accept authoritarian measures to protect themselves and their in-group.”

Cue the xenophobia we’re witnessing here in the U.S. where the support for mass deportations is, horrifyingly, stronger than ever; Trump is making it a centerpiece of his second term.

But it’s happening all over the world, as revealed in a recent study led by Swedish neuroscientist Marta Zakrzewska in which she gives evidence from nine countries across five continents that body odor disgust sensitivity (BODS) is associated with xenophobia, too.

The truth is that smell and disgust have long been linked with in- and out-groups (listen to my conversation with Prof. Andrew Kettler about olfactory racism). It’s nothing new. Which is why I want to bring your attention to the connection.

We are living in tumultuous times and I believe that now more than ever we must be aware of the little olfactory clues that contribute to pulling us apart and creating the “other”.

If you think about it, small children aren’t born with strong aversions to particular smells. Instead they learn what smells are pleasing and disgusting through the places and cultures they grow up in.

As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.”

Perhaps if we become more aware of smells and the emotions they trigger, we can strengthen our ability to resist those who try to manipulate those feelings for harmful purposes.

It’s a thought I leave you with today.

Credit: Street Art Utopia, Seattle, Washington USA