Disgust is a type of aversive reaction that involves withdrawing from a person or object with strong expressions of revulsion whether real or pretended. Another definition of disgust can be defined as a revulsion response towards potential contamination . Disgust can be described as a universal, basic emotion that functions to help protect an organism from ingesting potentially harmful substances, thereby promoting disease avoidance. It is one of the basic emotions and is typically associated with things that are regarded as unclean, inedible, infectious, gory or otherwise offensive.
In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin wrote that disgust refers to something revolting. Disgust is experienced primarily in relation to the sense of taste (either perceived or imagined), and secondarily to anything which causes a similar feeling by sense of smell, touch, or vision. Musically sensitive people may even be disgusted by the cacophony of inharmonious sounds. Research continually has proven a relationship between disgust and anxiety disorders such as spider phobia, blood-injection-injury phobia, and contamination fear related obsessive-compulsive disorder(also known as OCD).
Fear of contamination, by insects, waste products or any kind of corruption, may inspire disgust. In this case, disgust arises from a process of inference from perceptual experience. For example, the understanding that insects have, in the past, caused pestilence may lead to a present-moment extrapolation that certain other insects, however innocuous, are disgusting because they are causing, or could cause, disease.
Disgust is one of the basic emotions of Robert Plutchik's theory of emotions and has been studied extensively by Paul Rozin. It invokes a characteristic facial expression, one of Paul Ekman's six universal facial expressions of emotion. Unlike the emotions of fear, anger, and sadness, disgust is associated with a decrease in heart rate.
Read more about Disgust: Evolutionary Significance, Cultural Differences, The Neural Basis of Disgust, Body Language, Disgust and Morality, Functions of Disgust, Political and Legal Aspects of Disgust, Animal Research, The Hydra’s Tale: Imagining Disgust
Other articles related to "disgust":
... According to the book The Hydra’s Tale Imagining Disgust by Robert Rawdon Wilson, disgust may be further subdivided into physical disgust, associated with physical or metaphorical ... For example "I am disgusted by the hurtful things that you are saying." Moral disgust should be understood as culturally determined physical disgust as more universally ... The book also discusses moral disgust as an aspect of the representation of disgust ...
... The emotion of disgust may have an important role in understanding the neurobiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), particularly in those with contamination preoccupations ... showed significantly greater neural responses to disgust-invoking images, specifically in the right insula ... found that the brain activation associated with disgust included the insula and part of the gustatory cortex that processes unpleasant tastes and smells ...
... Disgust, one of the basic emotions, may have an important role in certain forms of morality ... Disgust is argued to be a specific response to certain things or behaviors that are dangerous or undesirable from an evolutionary perspective ... Another example is disgust against evolutionary disadvantageous mating such as incest (the incest taboo) or unwanted sexual advances ...
... According to the book The Hydra’s Tale Imagining Disgust by Robert Rawdon Wilson, disgust may be further subdivided into physical disgust, associated with physical ... The book also discusses moral disgust as an aspect of the representation of disgust ... First, he discusses representations of disgust in literature, film and fine art ...
... The emotion disgust has been noted to feature strongly in the public sphere in relation to issues and debates, among other things, regarding anatomy ... by different commentators on the role, purpose and effects of disgust on public discourse ... Martha Nussbaum, a jurist and ethicist, explicitly rejects disgust as an appropriate guide for legislating, arguing the "politics of disgust" is an unreliable emotional reaction with ...
Famous quotes containing the word disgust:
“Whatever events in progress shall disgust men with cities, and infuse into them the passion for country life, and country pleasures, will render a service to the whole face of this continent, and will further the most poetic of all the occupations of real life, the bringing out by art the native but hidden graces of the landscape.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“the disgust won and because
of this I am a hoarder of words
I hold them in though they are
dung oh God I am a digger
I am not an idler
am I?”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Of all the things that oppress me, this sense of the evil working of nature herself—my disgust at her barbarity—clumsiness—darkness—bitter mockery of herself—is the most desolating.”
—John Ruskin (1819–F1900)