The most unfairly treated emotion: disgust

It’s a great night. You have gone to that restaurant that you like so much and you have ordered your favorite dish. You are waiting for it hungry and eager until it finally arrives. You start eating and suddenly You realize that there is a half-dead, disgusting and horrible bug on your plate, and you were about to eat it. Gross!

An unpleasant but extremely protective sensation runs through your being: it is disgust.. In just a few seconds you have gone from being ravenously hungry to never wanting to go back to that restaurant you liked again, and of course to not wanting to have dinner that night.

Like all emotions, disgust also has its function. Just as fear protects us from different dangerous stimuli that can compromise our lives, disgust is also a basic and universal emotion necessary to ensure the survival of the organism, since it protects it from the oral ingestion of substances and objects dangerous to the organism. or the spread of diseases.

In this sense, it may seem that fear and disgust are closely related emotions… Who has not seen a cockroach at home and felt fear and disgust at the same time?but they are certainly differentiated emotions.

What causes disgust?

You could say that disgust precedes fear. Alberto Acosta (2007) highlights that disgust is produced by “having taken or being too close to an indigestible (metaphorically speaking) object or idea”. I may feel disgust towards rotting food and I will feel fear if I finally eat it and run the risk of getting sick and dying. Thanks to this emotion and the avoidance or repulsion that it entails, it will be much more unlikely that you will finally eat that spoiled food.

Read Also: Psychological consultant: profession of personal development and deployment

It is interesting to note that When we generate certain emotions, responses are also produced at a cognitive level, at a physiological level and at a behavioral level. Many times, depending on these answers we can conclude whether or not we are facing a psychological disorder.

In the case of disgust, which is the topic at hand, at a cognitive level there is always an evaluation of the stimulus as threatening, contaminating or capable of causing us an illness.

At a physiological level we can feel nausea, activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, dizziness…as a natural reaction of the body to move away from that stimulus. Finally, at a behavioral level we carry out clear behaviors of repulsion, escape and typical and universal facial expressions that help us communicate our displeasure.

It has also been proven that disgust, in addition to being a basic emotion common to all species, in humans has a particularity, which is that It has been an emotion “amplified” by social and cultural influences. Thus It is not easy to overcome the toxic ideas that have been associated with us since we were children. with some foods. It is for this reason that some people find it difficult to adapt to the gastronomic customs of other countries.

For example, There are people who feel disgust – or so they express it – when they see two individuals of the same sex making love. or people who feel disgusted the first time they try tobacco, but due to certain influences, continue using it until they become addicted.

“In this last sense, disgust could be considered an emotion derived from civilization itself whose task is the protection and preservation of the cultural values of the moment.”

-Miller (1997)-

From disgust to phobia

Finally, and referring to psychological disorders, it has been seen as The exaggerated emotion of disgust can lead certain people to suffer from certain specific phobias, especially with animals considered disgusting that we associate with dirt (worms, cockroaches, spiders…).

Read Also: Calimero syndrome: complaining as a way of being and relating

Another line of research has associated this emotion with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Half of OCD patients are those who experience an extremely unpleasant sensation when they think that if they touch certain objects or are in certain situations they will become contaminated. They then need to carry out the compulsion to wash as a way to avoid illness and ensure survival.

According to these investigations, Many anxiety disorders may be more related to the emotion of disgust. than with anxiety or fear itself. Only science will help us find out.

“Experiences of hate possibly rely on the biological framework of disgust.”

-Alberto Acosta-

Acosta (2007) points out that disgust can also be taken to an ideological level. He states that “The strength of this emotion frequently appears associated with some cultural constructions such as ideologies.“. In this way, we can better understand racist or xenophobic behavior. He also adds that “It is not difficult to teach and train individuals from a young age to consider an idea, an ideology, an attitude, a race or ethnicity, a way of living, etc. as toxic.”.