Upton Sinclair’s classic description of early 20th-century meat packing is disgusting, to be sure. But disgust's "most troubling," and perhaps its most fascinating, aspect: “It attracts as well as repels” (W.I. Miller, 1997), a fact emphasized by Freud (1905). Disgust is an emotion of "considerable contradiction" (Strohminger, 2014).
The concept of disgust was pervasive in classical Latin and Greek literature (Lateiner and Spatharas, 2017), though the word itself did not appear until the 16th century.
Shakespeare never used the actual word. Nevertheless, his plays are replete with vile, foul, repulsive images, including one of Antony “quenching his thirst with horse urine”(Antony and Cleopatra), detailed in the newly published book Shakespeare and Disgust (Irish, 2023).
Disgust was initially considered a "motivational system" that evolved to detect pathogens (Kavaliers et al, 2018). It was an "emotion of regulation" governing incorporation and expulsion (Irish).
Paul Rozin, a research pioneer on disgust, writes that we do not know how or when disgust originated, but there are several theoretical perspectives: an evolutionary one, with its focus on minimizing pathogens and contamination; a cognitive neuroscience approach, with a focus on brain regions, including the insula (Kavaliers et al, 2021); and a psychopathology perspective, with its focus on fear and anxiety (Rozin et al, 2018).
Other researchers have suggested that disgust may have evolved not only to avoid pathogen contamination but to regulate decisions about a choice of mate and morality (i.e., creating sexual disgust) (Tybur et al, 2013).
Disgust has been described as a “shape-shifter.” With repeated contact, the same object can lose its capacity to stimulate disgust. Many occupations, such as physicians, plumbers, and soldiers, must overcome and cope with any initial disgust they may feel to perform their work effectively (Wilson, 2002).
One study, though, found that disgust is a "common experience" among healthcare professionals, though rarely discussed, and may lead to the neglect and abuse of patients (Hadjittofi et al, 2020).
The intensity of disgust increases the closer we are to the offending products, including human or animal waste, such as feces, urine,........