disgust

disgust is associated with highly unpleasant sensations and emotions that want to be decidedly rejected. But a closer, scientific examination of even such negative emotional aspects reveals interesting insights into our nature, but also our culture.

It is therefore worthwhile to define the feeling of disgust, to fathom its functions and benefits for humans and to explain any disgusting disorders in humans.

What is the disgust?

Disgust can generally be described as all negative feelings, often associated with nausea and rejection. What is important here is a felt physical reaction in connection with the emotion of aversion.

Not liking a politician because he or she has a wrong agenda from his own point of view does not count as disgust, for example, because there is usually no physical reaction. Only with symptoms such as choking, sweating, palpitations, dizziness or even vomiting is the reaction considered disgust.

Through the combination of mental rejection and physical repulsion, disgust is a very strong sensation that forces its way into the foreground of consciousness of the person concerned.

Most people are disgusted by a number of things of their own: feces, offal, mold and rubbish. Certain animals also cause disgust in many people, usually small animals such as worms, maggots, spiders and snakes.

Speaking of animals: even animals with a developed brain seem to be disgusted with certain things or at least to avoid them.For example, great apes like chimpanzees fear wading through rivers, which is why they cannot swim. Disgust is not exclusively human.

Function & task

The function of disgust for humans seems quite obvious: just like fear, disgust is a protective function, but in contrast to fear it is not about which things have to be run away from, but which things should simply be avoided, i.e. what to do with Example may not be eaten.

If there were no disgusting reactions, people would eat spoiled food, not clean up their rubbish thoroughly and live significantly more unhygienically. Conditions in which germs and diseases flourish would drastically reduce our life expectancy and quality.

How strong and at the same time protective disgust can be was demonstrated in an experiment with great apes: The apes' own droppings were prepared according to all the rules of the art so that the primates should mistake it for food and eat it. It was painted, sprayed with fragrances and served along with conventional food. For free. The monkeys always refused to eat the droppings.

While the protective function of disgust is undisputed, its origin can be discussed: Is disgust more genetic or cultural? Of course, animals also feel disgust, but animals certainly also have a kind of cultural evolution in which behavioral norms are not passed on through genetic material, but rather through watching and learning.

There are also noticeable differences between human cultures. An example of this is the disgust of many Europeans for insects such as grasshoppers, which are consumed as delicacies or snacks in Asia.

What people find disgusting and what isn't often depends on the values ​​that are attached to things. Although there is no rational argument for why dog ​​meat should be less tasty than pork or beef, in this country we almost automatically feel disgust and rejection of dog meat. Simply because dog meat is not allowed to be eaten in the West because it is considered immoral.

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Illnesses & ailments

Disturbances of the feeling of disgust can reach either extreme. First of all, there are phobias, i.e. an exaggerated feeling of disgust and rejection of things that are perfectly common to most people. Some phobias are still understandable, such as arachnophobia (fear of spiders) or achluophobia (fear of the dark). But many more seem puzzling to most, including aquaphobia (fear of water or being in the water) or coniophobia (fear of dust) and countless others.

Sometimes phobias seem simply inexplicable, but time and again a traumatic experience in childhood has been recognized as the cause of irrational disgust. Who e.g. almost drowned in the lake as a child, may rightly be afraid of even getting into a bathtub in the future.

At the other extreme are people who don't feel disgusted even with the most unhygienic things. Often this is even accompanied by sexual inclinations, which can be viewed as pathological fetishism (paraphilia). Examples include dead bodies (necrophilia), feces (coprophilia), the urge to eat excrement (coprophagia) and urine (urophilia).

It is still the subject of intensive psychological research, what is the cause of these paraphilias and why the disgust is not only eliminated in them, but literally turned into rapture. Serious personality disorders are often suspected in the affected person. It is also noticeable that these people never primarily suffer from their perversions, but are only confronted with their disorder through the social environment, be it through confrontation with the law or being reprimanded by other people.