Understanding disgust
- Creators
- Chapman, Hanah A.
- Anderson, Adam K.
- Others:
- Kingstone, Alan
- Miller, Michael B.
Abstract
Disgust is characterized by a remarkably diverse set of stimulus triggers, ranging from extremely concrete (bad tastes and disease vectors) to extremely abstract (moral transgressions and those who commit them). This diversity may reflect an expansion of the role of disgust over evolutionary time, from an origin in defending the body against toxicity and disease, through defense against other threats to biological fitness (e.g., incest), to involvement in the selection of suitable interaction partners, by motivating the rejection of individuals who violate social and moral norms. The anterior insula, and to a lesser extent the basal ganglia, are implicated in toxicity- and disease-related forms of disgust, although we argue that insular activation is not exclusive to disgust. It remains unclear whether moral disgust is associated with insular activity. Disgust offers cognitive neuroscientists a unique opportunity to study how an evolutionarily ancient response rooted in the chemical senses has expanded into a uniquely human social cognitive domain; many interesting research avenues remain to be explored.
Additional Information
© 2012 New York Academy of Sciences. Article first published online: 18 Jan. 2012. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 32436
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20120713-140547354
- Created
-
2012-07-13Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Series Name
- Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
- Series Volume or Issue Number
- 1251