Disgust

“Ultimately, the basis for all disgust is us ― that we live and die and that the process is a messy one emitting substances and odors that make us doubt ourselves and fear our neighbors.”

(Miller, 1997, p. xiv)

0 = something you would not like50 = neutral100 = something you would like

How would you feel about wearing a sweater that was…

1. …brand new?2. …worn by a perfectly healthy stranger?3. …worn by someone diagnosed with

leukemia?4. …worn by someone who lost his/her leg in a

car accident?5. …worn by someone who was convicted of

murder?

Elicitors: What causes disgust?

For North Americans…Elicitors of Disgust Food Body products Animals Sexual behaviors Contact with death or corpses Violations of exterior envelope of the body

(including gore and deformity) Poor hygiene Interpersonal Contamination (contact w/

unsavory human beings) Moral offenses

(Haidt, Rozin, & colleagues, 1993, 1994, 1997)

Definition of Disgust Focus on mouth, real/imagined ingestion, or oral rejection of

aversive stimulus (Ekman & Friesen, 1975)

Avoidance of stimuli High in infection potential (Curtis et al., 2004) Oral toxins and parasites (Kelly, 2007)

Probably began as a rejection response to guard body from harmful food

As human societies developed, definition expanded to a rejection response that guards humans from a variety of dangers

Harm for body + Harm for Soul (e.g., morality, social order)

Disgust Components Physiological Arousal?

Subjective Feelings?

Cognitive Appraisals?

Behavior Change?

Disgust 4 Components Physiology:

PNS Activation – ↓HR, ↓BP, nausea, gagging, passing out SNS Activation - ↑SCR, ↑HR, ↑BP May depend on situation – threat vs. consumption Brain Areas: insula, basal ganglia, parts of prefrontal

cortex

Subjective Feelings: Repulsion, Drop in arousal

Appraisals It’s contaminated! It has a disease! It reminds me of an animal! I’m feeling lightheaded!

(Scherer, 1997)

Disgust 4 Components Physiology:

PNS Activation – ↓HR, ↓BP, nausea, gagging, passing out SNS Activation - ↑SCR, ↑HR, ↑BP May depend on situation – threat vs. consumption Brain Areas: insula, basal ganglia, parts of prefrontal cortex

Subjective Feelings: Repulsion, Drop in arousal

Appraisals It’s contaminated! It has a disease! It reminds me of an animal! I’m feeling lightheaded!

Behavior: Rejection, Avoidance, and Facial Expressions

Expressive Component

RETRACTION OF UPPER LIP

NOSE WRINKLE

GAPE

4 Types of Disgust Core

Animal-Nature

Interpersonal

Moral

Core Disgust Oral defense related to food contamination

Not just a bad taste

Not just danger to the body (i.e., fear)

Distasteful PLUS Dangerous

Universal across cultures

3 Appraisals Required: Oral Incorporation, Offensiveness, and Contamination

Core Disgust: Oral Incorporation into the Self Strongest aversion is to an

offensive entity in mouth

Appraisal - You are what you eat

Believe that we take on the physical and moral properties of the thing that we eat

Core Disgust: Offensiveness All animals and their waste products as

potential foods

All cultures eat a small subset of animal foods

In many cultures, we disguise our food

Many cultures share same food taboos

Core Disgust: Offensiveness Animals and the waste

products of all animals as potential food

Universal- All cultures eat a small subset of animal foods Many cultures share

same food taboos

In many cultures, we disguise our food

Core Disgust: Contamination Universal Contamination

Response

Adaptation for disease avoidance

Law of Contagion – once in contact, always in contact Kelly’s

Law of Similarity – the image equals the object

4 Types of Disgust Core

Animal-Nature

Interpersonal

Moral

Animal-Nature Disgust List most disgusting things

25% classified as core disgust

75% classified into 4 additional domains: Inappropriate sexual acts Poor hygiene Death (Terror Management Theory; Greenberg et al.,

1986) Imagining death → Disgust Disgust → Thoughts about death

Envelope Violations (e.g., gore, deformity, obesity)

(Haidt, Rozin, & colleagues, 1997)

Animal-Nature Disgust

Disgust Elicitor: anything that reminds us that we are animals Inappropriate sexual acts –

veneral disease Poor hygiene – skin to skin,

hair to hair Death (Terror Management

Theory) Envelope Violations

Fragile body envelopes display our commonality with animals

4 Types of Disgust Core

Animal-Nature

Interpersonal

Moral

0 = something you would not like50 = neutral100 = something you would like

How would you feel about wearing a sweater that was…

1. …brand new?2. …worn by a perfectly healthy stranger?3. …worn by someone diagnosed with

leukemia?4. …worn by someone who lost his/her leg in a

car accident?5. …worn by someone who was convicted of

murder?

Interpersonal Disgust Disgust Elicitor: Other people,

who are containers of waste products

Adaptation discourages contact with strangers

1. Strangeness (e.g., worn bowling shoes)

2. Misfortune (e.g., amputated leg)

3. Disease (e.g., tuberculosis, ebola)

4. Moral Taint (e.g., conviction for murder) (Rozin et al., 1989, 1994)

Silence of the Lambs

Giada

Outbreak

Hangover

CORE

ANIMAL-NATURE

INTERPERSONAL

Disgust Sensitivity Disgust Scale (DS; Haidt et al., 1994)

• Food Products• Animal Products• Body Products

Core Elicitors

• Inappropriate sexuality• Envelope Violations• Death

Animal-Nature Elicitors

• Human-human contactInterpersonal Elicitors

Core? Animal-Nature? Interpersonal?1. You see a man with his intestines exposed after an accident.

2. You are walking barefoot on concrete and step on a worm.

3. You hear about a 30-year old man who seeks sexual relationships with 80-year old women.

4. You accidentally touch the ashes of a person who has been cremated.

5. If I see someone vomit, it makes me sick to my stomach.

6. You see someone put ketchup on vanilla ice cream and eat it.

7. I never let any part of my body touch toilet seats in public restrooms.

Disgust Sensitivity Are you willing to touch it?’’

(88%)

‘‘Are you willing to pick it up in your hand?’’ (82%)

‘‘Are you willing to touch it to your lip?’’ (64%)

‘‘Are you willing to take a bite?’’ (57%)

(Rozin et al., 1999)

Disgust Sensitivity Participants engaged in 26 disgust-related tasks

Disgust Behavior Measure: average performance on disgust related tasks High = high willingness to engage in disgust-related

behaviors Low = low willingness to engage in disgust-related

behaviors

Disgust Scale (Haidt et al., 1994) High = High likeliness to experience disgust Low = Low likeliness to experience disgust

(Rozin et al., 1999)

Disgust Behavior Average 26 Behaviors Disgust Scale

Mucous .76* -.26

Grasshopper .70* -.46*

Dogfudge .69* -.31*

Mealworm .68* -.39*

Ketchup on cracker .67* -.08

Condom .63* -.17

Ashes .57* -.33*

Wormpop .57* -.11

Cockroach .56* -.43*

Pighead .53* -.31*

Bedpan .49* -.17

Monkeyfilm .47* -.29*

Tampon .46* -.15

Surgeryfilm .29* -.30*

Grassjelly .26* -.06

Snake .24 -.33*

Average 26 Disgust Behaviors -.41*

Disgust SensitivityDisgust Scale (DS; Haidt et al., 1994) Predicts disgust-relevant behavior

When looking at disgusting photos, disgusting facial expressions, and inhaling bad odors, higher scores linked to greater insular cortex activation Greater SCR Lower HR

Associated with clinical disorders Core and interpersonal predict contamination aspects of

OCD Animal-reminder predicts blood-injection-injury fears

[Wicker, B., et al. (2003). Both of us disgusted in my insula: The common neural basis of seeing and feeling disgust. Neuron, 40, 655-664. doi: 10.1016/S0896-6273(03)00679-2]

Who has greater disgust sensitivity? Women or men?

Older or Younger?

High or low socioeconomic status?

More or less education?

Psychopathy or no psychopathy?

4 Types of Disgust Core

Animal-Nature

Interpersonal

Moral

Moral Disgust Disgust Elicitor: Moral violation

Elicitors Vary by Culture North Americans – violations of individual

(betrayal, hypocrisy) Japanese – violations of social order (ostracism,

being ignored)

Is moral disgust an emotion? Evidence to Support Cross-cultural similarity in words that describe

both core and moral disgust English – disgusted French – dégoût German – Ekel Hebrew – go-al Japanese – ken-o Chinese – aw-shin

(Haidt et al., 1997)

Is moral disgust an emotion? Evidence to Support Cross-cultural similarity in

words that describe both core and moral disgust

Insula cortex is activated for both moral, core, and animal-nature disgust

Physiology for moral disgust parallels physiology for core disgust, not anger

(Sherman et al., 2007)

Is moral disgust an emotion? Evidence Against “Grossed Out” → Core Disgust

“Disgusted” → Disgust and Anger

Lay word = Disgust + Anger

Disgust scale elicitors weakly correlated with moral disgust elicitors

(Nabi, 2002; Haidt et al., 1999)

CAD Triad Hypothesis

Community /

Contempt

Divinity /

Disgust

Autonomy /

Anger

[Rozin, P., Lowery, L., Imada, S., & Haidt, J. (1999). The CAD Triad Hypothesis: A mapping between three moral emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes (community, autonomy, divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 574-586. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.76.4.574]

Violations of communal

codesViolations of

individual rights

Violations of purity and sanctity

Evidence for CAD Hypothesis US and Japanese Students read scenarios that

included 1 of the 3 violations Community: A person is seeing someone burn the

American [Japanese] flag Autonomy: Someone is edging ahead of a person

in a long line Divinity: A person is touching a corpse

To each scenario, assigned 1 of 6 facial expressions – anger, contempt,

disgust 1 of 3 emotion labels – anger, contempt, disgust

[Rozin, P., Lowery, L., Imada, S., & Haidt, J. (1999). The CAD Triad Hypothesis: A mapping between three moral emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes (community, autonomy, divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 574-586. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.76.4.574]

66%

27%

8%

Community: U.S. Facial Expressions

28%

30%

9%

Community: U.S. Emotion Labels

ContemptAngerDisgust

28%

57%

15%

Autonomy: U.S. Facial Expressions

19%

58%

10%

Autonomy: U.S. Emotion Labels

19%

10%

71%

Divinity: U.S. Facial Expressions

3%2%

79%

Divinity: U.S. Emotion Labels

[Rozin, P., Lowery, L., Imada, S., & Haidt, J. (1999). The CAD Triad Hypothesis: A mapping between three moral emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes (community, autonomy, divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 574-586. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.76.4.574]