Chapter 1. The Development of Disgust
1.1 The Development of Disgust
Short Description
For the past twenty years, psychologist Paul Rozin has studied the universal emotion of disgust. He notes that when we are told that something smells disgusting we are curious, approach the substance, and are then typically repulsed by the odor.
Long Description
For the past twenty years, psychologist Paul Rozin has studied the universal emotion of disgust. He notes that when we are told that something smells disgusting we are curious, approach the substance, and are then typically repulsed by the odor. Rozin has been particularly interested in how our thoughts and emotions become linked as we develop.
Disgust initially seems to involve food. Over time, however, what we find disgusting extends to touching dead things, to blood and gore, and to certain unnatural sexual practices. Even certain people may elicit disgust. What’s the linkage, asks Rozin, between the initial core of disgust, namely food, and all these other things?
Children of different ages react quite differently to a variety of messy foods. At a very early age they show taste preferences. By age 3 or 4, they make a distinction between food and things that should not be eaten. And their judgments are no longer made as they once were, say, at 14 months, simply on the basis of taste.
A key landmark in the development of disgust is the acquisition of the concept of contamination. Although both younger and older children react with disgust to a cockroach, as well as to apple juice containing one, only the older children seem to have a concept of contamination. The younger ones drink the juice after the cockroach has been removed, whereas the older ones resist.
Rozin maintains that adults’ disgust reactions to a variety of abstract stimuli develop from our earlier reactions to something that tastes disgusting. Our reaction begins, says Rozin, with “I want to get it out of my mouth” and ends with “I want to get it out of my mind, even out of my soul.” In short, disgust of everything offensive reflects our efforts to become better people.