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Understanding disgust
Author(s) -
Chapman Hanah A.,
Anderson Adam K.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06369.x
Subject(s) - disgust , psychology , commit , cognition , social psychology , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , neuroscience , anger , database , computer science
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.