Disgust Is Good For You
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Icky Poo
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http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994563
11:03 14 January 04
NewScientist.com news service
The purpose of disgust has been quantitatively demonstrated for the first time - it is an evolved response that protects people from disease or harm.
Researchers at the UK's London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine surveyed over 40,000 individuals, using a web-based questionnaire posted on BBC Online. Respondents were asked to rate a series of paired photographs according to how disgusting they found each one.
In the pairs, one image had some link to disease, while the other was very similar but had no relevance to disease. For example, one pair had a photograph of a healthy-looking man, while in the other the man looked sweaty and ill. Another had a towel with a blue stain paired with a towel with a stain resembling bodily fluids.
Significantly more people found the disease-related images more disgusting than their pairs. Women and younger people showed the greatest sensitivity to images of disease or body fluids.
Evasive action
"Disgust is a form of evasive action to protect us against signs of threat, such as disease," says Val Curtis, who led the research. "Women need to have a higher level of sensitivity to infection or disease, because they are the main carers of infants. And, as reproductive ability declines with age, so does disgust."
In the past, theorists have proposed that disgust is a response to "otherness", something that is foreign to us, or else to things that are simply out of their socially acceptable context.
For example, dirt is seen as acceptable in a garden, but disgusting on a dining table. The new study provides evidence that the main purpose of disgust is more specific than this, i.e. to highlight danger from infection.
Eating tarantulas
The study confirms observations of other species, says Lance Workman, a psychologist at Cardiff University: "All animals avoid or fear those things that carry disease, such as blood, faeces and vomit. Disgust is an evolutionary response to dangerous items."
However, Workman adds that people can learn to suppress disgust. "In some parts of the world people eat tarantulas, which is something that would disgust most people," he toldNew Scientist.
Petruska Clarkson, professor of counselling and psychotherapy at the University of Surrey, notes that disgust is such an instinctive "animal-like" emotion that they are still frequently disgusted by an illness even if they know that it is not contagious.
"People often pull away from cancer patients although they know that they cannot catch the disease," she said. "But parental love, or professional care in the case of a nurse, can overcome this strong emotion."
The survey did not address attitudes to disgust of a sexual nature.
Journal reference:Proceedings of the Royal Society London B (DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2003.0144)
Gaia Vince
11:03 14 January 04
NewScientist.com news service
The purpose of disgust has been quantitatively demonstrated for the first time - it is an evolved response that protects people from disease or harm.
Researchers at the UK's London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine surveyed over 40,000 individuals, using a web-based questionnaire posted on BBC Online. Respondents were asked to rate a series of paired photographs according to how disgusting they found each one.
In the pairs, one image had some link to disease, while the other was very similar but had no relevance to disease. For example, one pair had a photograph of a healthy-looking man, while in the other the man looked sweaty and ill. Another had a towel with a blue stain paired with a towel with a stain resembling bodily fluids.
Significantly more people found the disease-related images more disgusting than their pairs. Women and younger people showed the greatest sensitivity to images of disease or body fluids.
Evasive action
"Disgust is a form of evasive action to protect us against signs of threat, such as disease," says Val Curtis, who led the research. "Women need to have a higher level of sensitivity to infection or disease, because they are the main carers of infants. And, as reproductive ability declines with age, so does disgust."
In the past, theorists have proposed that disgust is a response to "otherness", something that is foreign to us, or else to things that are simply out of their socially acceptable context.
For example, dirt is seen as acceptable in a garden, but disgusting on a dining table. The new study provides evidence that the main purpose of disgust is more specific than this, i.e. to highlight danger from infection.
Eating tarantulas
The study confirms observations of other species, says Lance Workman, a psychologist at Cardiff University: "All animals avoid or fear those things that carry disease, such as blood, faeces and vomit. Disgust is an evolutionary response to dangerous items."
However, Workman adds that people can learn to suppress disgust. "In some parts of the world people eat tarantulas, which is something that would disgust most people," he toldNew Scientist.
Petruska Clarkson, professor of counselling and psychotherapy at the University of Surrey, notes that disgust is such an instinctive "animal-like" emotion that they are still frequently disgusted by an illness even if they know that it is not contagious.
"People often pull away from cancer patients although they know that they cannot catch the disease," she said. "But parental love, or professional care in the case of a nurse, can overcome this strong emotion."
The survey did not address attitudes to disgust of a sexual nature.
Journal reference:Proceedings of the Royal Society London B (DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2003.0144)
Gaia Vince
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