Disgust

Disgust

1. What are pathogens? Microparasites- bacteria, protozoa, viruses. Macroparasites- Helminths and arthropods.

2. The immune system, Infection is costly; energy balance, both the pathogen and the defence cause the damage, pathogen induced behavioural change, pathogens make you more susceptible to other pathogens, its bad to be dead.

3. Disease avoidance; cue detection + triggered emotional and cognitive responses = facilitate avoidance of pathogens. Avoidance of infection in nonhuman animals; Avoidance of macro parasites; foraging away from faces or selectively defecating, grooming and preening, fly repelling behaviour; tail switching, foot stamping & head tossing. Lining nests with plants tactic to parasites. Avoidance of macro parasites; grooming, postcopulatory grooming and wound cleaning, infanticide and cannibalims, conditioned food aversions.

4. Disgust- the core of the behavioural immune system; uniquely human, similar elicitors of disgust across societies. Cross-culturally recognised facial expression

5. Three model structure of disgust; microbes, mating and morality. pathogen disgust; avoid physical contact with courses of infectious disease. Sexual disgust; avoid sexual partners and behaviours that would jeopardise reproduction. Moral disgust; strategically endorse rules and coordinate moral condemnation. ways of measuring disgust sensitivity; scales and questionnaires, rating images, measuring disgust facial expressions, disgusting tasks and ratings.

6. Pathogen disgust; food disgust- Omnivore- humans eat a wide variety of plants and animals, advantage; offers a wide of sources of nutrition. Disadvantages; greater chance of ingesting harmful or poisonous substances. Disgust helps create internal/ automatic code for good or bad foods. Yum and Yuk are culturally influence. disease cues evoke disgust.

7. The development of digestl during the first 2 years of life, Rozin studied the development of disgust by offering toddlers various foods. Not until the age of 8 did children reject juice dipped with a grasshopper or imitation poo. Cash dan; first 2 years of life are a sensitive period for learning about what to eat, difficult to change food preferences after this time.

8. why not engage in disease avoidance all the time? costs; energy expenditure, social/mating opportunities, nutrition opportunities. Degrees of disgust; vulnerability to disease- women with greater disease vulnerability are more disgust sensitive. People who have recently been ill show heightened attention and avoidance of disfigured individuals. Stigma against elderly and obese people is heater in people who report greater disease vulnerability. Also works the other way around; disgust increases the body's immune response. Disgust raises body temperature and salivary immune parameters.

9. Sex differences in disgust; women are more disgust sensitive than men overall and especially in the sexual domain. Three domains of disgust scale. Sexual domain, pathogen domain, moral domain.

10. Sex is risker for women- women; greater surface area of mucous membranes & more trauma. Women; greater than 3 times higher rate of contracting chlamydia. Women with single episode of PID- 20% chronic pain, 9% ectopic pregnancy, and 8% infertile.

11. Interaction of disgust and sexual arousal in men; Stevenson, Case & Oaten 2009, men exposed to pornography, related sex related vs nonsex related disgust elicitors in 3 different sensory modalities.

12. Are aroused women less disgust sensitive? Women randomises to watch an exciting, boring to pronographic fold, Sex-reated disgusting tasks; example; disposing of used pants. Non - sex related listing tasks. Example; sticking a needle in a cows eye ball. A bit.... sexually aroused subjects completed about 85% of the tasks (vs 66% in the other two groups). sexually aroused ops. A bit.. sexually aroused subjects completed about 85% of the tasks (vs 66% in the other two groups. sexual aroushed ops found that sexy disgusting tasks less disgusting. Women are less sexually aroused if thieve been disgusted.

13. Moral disgust; disgust as the basis for morals- does ethical/ moral sense arise from disgust?, disgust effects on moral judgment; disgust associated with more severe moral decisions. Some evidence that (US) conservatives are more disgust sensitive. Subjects hypnotised to experience disgust consider normal acts to be immoral. Smelly room increases harsh judgment against gay men.

14. Summary; disgust is uniquely human but many other animals have diseases avoidance mechanism. Disgust likely evolved to prevent disease and seems to link to immunity. The three factor model of disgust; pathogen, sexual and moral disgust. Sexual arousal decreases disgust sensitivity in men and partially in women. Disgust decreased sexual arousal in women. disgust influences our moral judgments and biases against others.