Profiling: What Is Disgust?

There are few emotions that are unpleasant even to think about, and disgust is one of them. Disgust encompasses a range of states with varying intensity, from mild aversion to a strong sense of revulsion. All forms of disgust are triggered by the feeling that something affecting you is gross, repulsive, or toxic. This makes sense: if something is unpleasant to us, we’ll do everything we can to stay away from it.

Disgust is one of the seven universal emotions, expressed in varying degrees of repulsion toward something. We can feel disgust toward things we perceive with our senses (sight, smell, touch, sound, taste), toward people’s actions or appearance, and even toward ideas.

What Triggers Disgust?

The universal trigger for disgust is the sense that something near us is poisonous, contagious, and therefore potentially dangerous. Some triggers are common human conditioned responses (like encountering certain bodily waste products), while others are more closely tied to cultural or individual influences (for example, disgust toward certain foods like insects, which is more common in Western cultures and less so in Eastern ones).

There is ongoing debate in the scientific community about whether certain forms of interpersonal and social disgust (toward someone’s appearance, actions, ideas, or social status) are learned and culture-specific, or if they exist in some form across all cultures. For example, everyone might feel disgust toward a “morally corrupt” person and their actions, but what is considered “moral corruption” can vary greatly.

Common triggers for disgust include:

• Bodily waste products
• Certain foods (often from cultures different from our own)
• The sight of something decaying, sick, or dying
• Injuries, surgeries, and/or contact with internal organs
• A person, animal, or object considered physically ugly
• Other people’s actions perceived as perversions (certain sexual preferences, torture, etc.)

How Disgust Develops

Children and teenagers (and sometimes even adults) often experience a kind of fascination with disgust, finding some disgusting things intriguing—this reflects the process of forming a worldview and learning about the world. In young children, disgust begins to develop around ages four to eight; before this stage, children may reject bad tastes or smells but don’t truly experience disgust.

Additional research has shown that children aren’t bothered by some things that adults find disgusting (for example, a chocolate bar shaped like feces). One theory suggests that when we’re younger, we lack the cognitive abilities needed for certain forms of learned disgust.

How Disgust Is Expressed

The most easily recognizable facial signs of disgust are wrinkling the nose and raising the upper lip. There are also standard vocal expressions of disgust—usually the interjection “ew,” gagging, or retching sounds. Physical sensations of disgust include spasms in the mouth, throat, and/or stomach, as well as nausea.

Why Do We Gag When Someone Else Does?

This may be due to “mirror neurons,” which allow us to empathize with others and their actions. In one study, functional MRI scans showed that participants’ brain activity was the same whether they were imitating emotions or observing them in others. The brain’s imitation and observation areas are so closely linked that we may want to cry when we see someone else cry—or feel nauseous when we see someone else vomit.

Finally, disgust often leads us to turn our head or even our whole body away from the source of the unpleasant sensation. When disgust leads to nausea, reactions can also include covering the nose and/or mouth and hunching over.

The Function of Disgust

The universal function of disgust is to move away from, block, or eliminate something unpleasant, toxic, or contaminating from the area where it could potentially harm our body. This is the secret, necessity, and advantage of disgust: it keeps us away from dangerous things so we can preserve our life and health. For example, disgust prevents us from eating something rotten and makes us avoid open sores to prevent infection, poisoning, or deadly disease.

However, while disgust is beneficial, it can also be dangerous, especially from a moral standpoint. Unfortunately, most societies and cultures teach people to avoid certain groups considered physically or morally disgusting, and thus learned disgust can drive dehumanization and humiliation of others.

Interesting Facts About Disgust

• Watching “gross” bodily functions in others often triggers disgust, but this reaction is suspended when it comes to someone we’re close to. Closeness lowers the threshold for what we consider disgusting, allowing us to help those we care about. In such cases, instead of running away, we reduce our loved one’s suffering (for example, changing a baby’s diaper or caring for a sick family member). This suspension of disgust fosters intimacy and can even strengthen love and a sense of community.
• Disgust can influence how you shop. Researchers Andrea Morales and Gavan Fitzsimons from Duke University in Arizona found that even the tastiest foods look disgusting when they’re within about 1 inch (3 cm) of something undesirable.
• In women, disgust may be linked to hormonal cycles. Daniel Fessler from UCLA has long been interested in why pregnant women are so easily disgusted and linked their sensitivity to the hormone progesterone. Progesterone levels rise sharply in the first trimester of pregnancy, and Fessler suggests this may help protect the fetus when it’s most vulnerable. However, this hormonal connection can affect women even when they’re not pregnant but are mid-cycle: as the body becomes more receptive to a potential embryo, it also triggers a stronger disgust response to protect against external infection.