What is disgust psychology

The lower lip may also hang, accompanied by a protruding tongue, similar to the gag reflex. In the body, disgust is characterised by feelings of nausea, but unlike fear and anger, does not cause physical arousal, like an increased heart rate. Sexual and moral disgust differ from pathogen disgust in terms of physiology. The behaviour associated with these two domains of disgust are general avoidance of the source. This is more to do with moral disgust, however, as sexual disgust causes aversion specifically in a sexual context.

Disgust is often an appropriate reaction to a stimulus that we should best avoid. It is often contextual and subjective, but places limits on our behaviour and what we will engage with.

A feeling of disgust towards bugs, for example, will prevent a person from enjoying gardening. A feeling of disgust towards germs may cause an individual to avoid physical contact with others. Approaches to reducing the power of disgust and relieving psychophysical symptoms come in the form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Exposure Therapy. These methods of managing disgust address underlying conditions like anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Disgust towards oneself is a complex feeling that is made up of deeper, unresolved issues. It differs from other forms of disgust in that it is not external objects or people that are avoided, but inner feelings of shame and disappointment. Most often, an individual who is disgusted with themselves feels this way due to an image or concept that was projected onto the individual by someone else.

This may feel like disgust, but it is in fact an accumulation of unresolved issues that need to be addressed if the individual is to be relieved of the feeling. These methods of alleviating feelings of disgust work by reducing the power or novelty of disgust in the first place. Furthermore, disgust, like all emotions, can be addressed and managed, at least partially, through the use of deep breathing and mindfulness techniques. Basic emotions, as defined most clearly by the psychologist Paul Ekman, are differentiated from more complex emotions on the grounds that basic emotions have some presence in nonhuman animals, are expressed and recognized universally in humans, and have a distinct facial expression.

Although disgust was clearly described by Charles Darwin in in his classic work, Expression of Emotions in Animals and Man, unlike anger, fear, and sadness, it was studied very little in psychology until the past few decades.

Like other basic emotions, the elicitation of disgust causes a set of predictable responses. Behaviorally, there is a withdrawal from the object of disgust.

There is a characteristic facial expression, including a closing of the nostrils, a raising of the upper lip, and sometimes a lowering of the lower lip gaping. The lowered lip is sometimes accompanied by tongue extension.

Physiologically, the signature of disgust is nausea. Unlike fear and anger, the two most similar basic emotions, disgust is not accompanied by physiological arousal e. These three types of response behavioral, expressive, and physiological are generally accompanied by a feeling of revulsion. It is in the domain of understanding the elicitors of disgust that the greatest challenge is encountered. So many things can elicit a disgust response. It is natural to look at nonhuman animals to get an idea of the basic core or origin of disgust.

An expression very much like the human facial expression of disgust is seen in many mammals. It typically occurs in response to tasting a food that is either innately unpleasant like something very bitter or something that has been associated with nausea e.

This fact, plus the fact that the disgust facial expression functions to eject things in the mouth and close off the nostrils, suggests that disgust, in its primitive form, is about food rejection. Further evidence for this comes from the very name of the emotion, disgust, which means bad taste.

And the nausea that is part of the disgust response has the very specific effect of discouraging eating. These facts caused Darwin to describe disgust as a response to bad tastes and caused the psychoanalyst Andras Angyal to described disgust as a form of oral rejection based on the nature of a particular food.

This type of bad taste or distaste disgust seems to be the origin of disgust and may be a way that animals both reject food and communicate to other members of its species that a particular food should be rejected. Similar expressions and functions for distaste can be observed in human infants. However, by the age of 5 years or so, humans show disgust responses to many potential foods that neither taste innately bad nor have been associated with illness.

One evolutionary benefit of disgust is to keep us away from or remove things potentially dangerous or damaging to keep us safe and healthy e. While there are noted benefits to feeling disgust, it can also be dangerous. Unfortunately, most societies teach the avoidance of certain groups of people deemed physically or morally disgusting and, thus, can be a driving force in dehumanizing and degrading others.

Intimacy lowers the threshold for what we consider disgusting. So, while we still may feel some degree of disgust, it is reduced enough that we are able to help those we care about. Now, rather than try to get away, we are called to reduce the suffering of the loved one e.

This suspension of disgust establishes intimacy and may even strengthen love and community. Learn to recognize and respond to the emotional expressions of others with our online micro expressions training tools to increase your ability to detect deception and catch subtle emotional cues.

Expand your knowledge of emotional skills and competencies with in-person workshops offered through Paul Ekman International. Delve into personal exploration and transformation with Cultivating Emotional Balance. Build your emotional vocabulary with the Atlas of Emotions , a free, interactive learning tool created by Drs. Paul and Eve Ekman at the request of the Dalai Lama. Read Dr. Introduce the world of emotions to children in a fun way with Dr.

What is disgust? Feeling disgust.