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Concept
Disgust
Summary
Disgust (desgouster, from Latin gustus, ) is an emotional response of rejection or revulsion to something potentially contagious or something considered offensive, distasteful or unpleasant. In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin wrote that disgust is a sensation that refers to something revolting. Disgust is experienced primarily in relation to the sense of taste (either perceived or imagined), and secondarily to anything which causes a similar feeling by sense of smell, touch, or vision. Musically sensitive people may even be disgusted by the cacophony of inharmonious sounds. Research has continually proven a relationship between disgust and anxiety disorders such as arachnophobia, blood-injection-injury type phobias, and contamination fear related obsessive–compulsive disorder (also known as OCD).
Disgust is one of the basic emotions of Robert Plutchik's theory of emotions, and has been studied extensively by Paul Rozin. It invokes a characteristic facial expression, one of Paul Ekman's six universal facial expressions of emotion. Unlike the emotions of fear, anger, and sadness, disgust is associated with a decrease in heart rate.
It is believed that the emotion of disgust has evolved as a response to offensive foods that may cause harm to the organism. A common example of this is found in human beings who show disgust reactions to mouldy milk or contaminated meat. Disgust appears to be triggered by objects or people who possess attributes that signify disease.
Self-report and behavioural studies found that disgust elicitors include:
body products (feces, urine, vomit, sexual fluids, saliva, and mucus);
foods (spoiled foods);
animals (rats, fleas, ticks, lice, snakes, cockroaches, worms, flies, spiders, pigeons and frogs);
hygiene (visible dirt and "inappropriate" acts [e.g., using an unsterilized surgical instrument]);
body envelope violations (blood, gore, and mutilation);
death (dead bodies and organic decay), hard diseases and disasters;
visible signs of infection
The above-mentioned main disgust stimuli are similar to one another in the sense that they can all potentially transmit infections, and are the most common referenced elicitors of disgust cross-culturally.
Official source
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