Word Aversion and Consumer Behavior
Abstract
Word aversion is characterized by visceral disgust in responseto seeing or hearing a word. Unlike taboo words or profanity,aversive words do not seem to have an obvious historicalcontext, referent, or pejorative function that causes people toreact negatively to them. “Moist” is a prototypical example ofan aversive word: roughly 20% of American English speakersequate hearing the word with the sound of fingernailsscratching a chalkboard. Despite widespread aversion to“moist,” the word frequently appears on the packaging ofconsumer products like cake, shampoo, and towelettes. Thepresent study tests whether word aversion affects consumerbehavior. We find that moist-averse participants are less liketo choose hygiene-related, but not food-related, products thathave “moist” on the package. We discuss the implications ofthis finding for theories of language processing and disgust inthe context of consumer behavior.