Hatred and Disgust

1. Hatred and Disgust Dr. Green

2. Appetites

3. Agreeableness and Disgust • Maintain boundaries and protect basic identities • Separate the pure and clean from the contaminated and unclean • Governed by magical thinking (cooties) • Contact can clean or contaminate

4. Core Disgust • Ingestion—taking in something orally • That which is taken in is an offensive substance • That substance is offensive because it is contaminated, e.g. has been touch by or near to human waste, a worm, cockroaches, etc. • (Rozin and Fallon)

5. Taste vs Texture • Studies have found that texture is more important than taste • Slimy, gooey, mushy and gelatinous foods were the most disgusting. (Most like rotten infectious flesh?)

6. Types of Disgust • Biological disgust maintains biological boundaries • Social disgust maintains social boundaries • Cultural disgust maintains ideological and moral boundaries

7. Biological DisgustAnimal Nature Disgust • Natural Reactions • Nausea and vomiting • Gag reflex • Natural objects • Rotten food (disgust=bad taste) • Bodily products, such as feces, urine, vomit, pus, blood, nasal discharge, semen, etc. • Death and the violation of body (gore) • The odor of decay or feces

8. Biological Disgust • The immune system distinguishes like from unlike • Disgust part of the immune continuum • Disgust prevents infectious agent from getting into the body • Vomiting removes it from the body before it can penetrate the bodily envelope • Immune system destroys infectious threats that have penetrated the body boundary Serotonin – A link between disgust and immunity? Medical Hypotheses, Volume 68, Issue 1, Pages 61-66M. Rubio-Godoy, R. Aunger, V. Curtis

9. Animals and Disgust • Disgust toward what reminds us of our animal nature • Cannibalism converts humans into food.

10. Disgust and Sex • Inappropriate sexual activities • Between people and animals • Between people of different ages • Between people of the same sex • Between living and dead people • Performed in inappropriate ways • Masturbation • Oral sex • Anal sex

11. Disgust and Death • Disgust from touching a corpse or dead animal • The Greek Miasma (pollution) arose from contact with the dead

12. Social Disgust • “We are clean. They are dirty.” • Maintains boundaries in the family (incest taboo) • Maintains class boundaries • Maintains racial boundaries • Maintains national boundaries • They • Eat disgusting food • Live in disgusting ways • Do disgusting things

13. Group Identity • Shared notions of disgust for the basis for distinguishing like from unlike and maintaining group identity

14. The Bacchae • Pentheus attributed disgusting behavior to the Bacchants • Drunken orgies

15. Cultural Disgust • Maintain moral boundaries • Abortion images • Homosexuality • Research by David Pizarro, professor at Cornell University indicates that conservatives tend to be more disgust sensitive.

16. Preludes to a Conversion Experience • Martin Luther’s mystical dump • Jonathan Edwards and the urinating dog • Expelling impurity from the self

17. Religion and Disgust • The object of “religion” is The Sacred • The Sacred is pure and spiritual • Desecrating the pure is disgusting • Impurity of the body contaminates the spirit • Food and drink taboos • Touch taboos • Sexual taboos • The body reminds us that we are animals that eat, excrete, and have sex.

18. Boundaries • Menstrual Odors, Dirty Diapers, and the Male Dominated Religious Quest For Purity: Giving Birth to Misogyny, Ethnic, and Racial Discriminations Originating in the Human Biological Emotion of Disgust.byWilliam A. Spriggs http://www.evoyage.com/BillsEssays/MenstrualOdors&Religion.htm