Does body odour disgust you? You might be a Trump supporter, study suggests
An ideological preference for authoritarian leaders among people who are easily repelled by smells may be explained by a desire to avoid unfamiliar groups, and a deep-seated instinct to avoid disease
People easily disgusted by body odours seem to prefer authoritarian leaders and were likelier to support Donald Trump, an unusual study into the origins of ideology suggested Wednesday.
The seemingly obscure link, it said, may be rooted in a deep-seated instinct to avoid disease – whether in individuals whose smell suggests they are germ-carriers, or “unfamiliar” people such as immigrants or minorities.
The study results “contribute to the growing evidence that contemporary social attitudes may be rooted in basic sensory functions,” the researchers wrote.
Donald Trump talks frequently about how different people disgust him … It fits with our hypothesis that his supporters would be more easily disgusted themselves
They were looking for signs of “right-wing authoritarianism” – which study author Marco Liuzza from Italy’s Magna Graecia University summarised as an attitude “promoting aggressive policies towards groups perceived as deviant or threatening the traditional values”.