Anger, Disgust and Norm Violations:

Per A. Andersson et al:

"Social norms are ubiquitous features of human societies. Central to understanding norms are judgments of what responses are appropriate when a norm is violated. .... How appropriate a given sanction is perceived to be depends on many non-individual factors, such as the kind of sanction, the severity of the norm violation, and culture but it also depends on the observer’s emotions elicited by the norm violation. Emotions have deep roots to behavior, for example, disgust is thought to serve the purpose of getting people to avoid pathogens, but it also leads to avoiding people who elicit disgust. Anger, in turn, has been hypothesized to promote the bargaining position of the angry person in influencing others to bend towards their will, as well as being part of a threat management system. ...

The emotional experiences of anger and disgust are important as they often precede and predict behaviors such as avoiding and punishing people who break norms. A wide range of studies have investigated anger and disgust as reactions to norm violations. Such studies include norm violations where the violation causes harm, is harmless but disgust-eliciting, or is a relatively harmless everyday uncivil behavior."