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A Perspective on Disgust
Journal article   Peer reviewed

A Perspective on Disgust

Paul Rozin and April E Fallon
Psychological review, v 94(1)
Jan 1987
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.1.23
PMID: 3823304
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel

Abstract

We approach disgust as a food-related emotion and define it as revulsion at the prospect of oral incorporation of offensive objects. These objects have contamination properties; if they even briefly contact an otherwise acceptable food, they tend to render it inedible. Drawing on sources from many cultures, we explore the implications of this perspective on disgust. Some of the issues we consider are the nature of the objects of disgust and why they are virtually all of animal origin, the meaning of oral incorporation, the "belief" that people take on the properties of the foods they eat, and the nature of the contamination response and its relation to the laws of sympathetic magic (similarity and contagion). We consider the ontogeny of disgust, which we believe develops during the first 8 years of life. We explore the idea that feces, the universal disgust object, is also the first, and we examine the mechanisms for the acquisition of disgust. We recommend disgust as an easily studiable emotion, a model for cognitive-affective linkages, and a model for the acquisition of values and culture.

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55 Record Views
1485 citations in Web of Science
1659 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Psychology
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
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