How Disgust Works

I know exactly why, Josh. And it is as follows colon quotes, because this is one of those things that science hasn't fully explained, which means there's a lot of interesting theories, which means we just get to like talk smack the whole time. It's interesting. This is one of those where I was reading it and I was I mean, it was sort of interesting, But then I was like, why wouldn't wouldn't even study this? I I that's I mean,

that's a good question. That's a good question. I think one of the reasons that I'm fascinated by it, and that I'm sure one of the reasons these I mean to to dedicate your career to studying disgust. It is kind of a bizarre idea. But one of the main researchers in the study of discussing a guy named Paul Rosen. He's kind of like the godfather, maybe even the father of the field. Yeah here, but he's been doing it longer than anybody, so he's the He's the pappy um

as they say in the Hills. Uh. He has said that to him, discussed is the thing, the emotion, the experience that makes humans human, that that it is discussed that separates us from the other animals that were sure the animal kingdom with so much so that we actually may use discussed to separate ourselves from the rest of the animals. Okay, that's pretty fascinating and it's worth exploring too, because I think it says a lot about us as as humans and as animals. So that's why that's the

answer your question. How about that? All? Right? Now, I get why somebody would want to study I guess I'm talking about allocating funds to study it. Oh, gotcha. It just seems like a strange thing to sink money into. Well, I mean, if the humanities are going to sink money into anything. What makes us the most human would be that make it? It makes sense according to one guy, Right, I love it. Let's talk about gross things. Okay, so we're going to so so this, this whole idea of

studying it, of studying disgust is actually pretty new. Um. Rosen didn't really start until like the seventies, and it wasn't until the nineties that it really got it really picked up, um, which will kind of get into. But prior to that, it was basically just philosophers who who were talking about disgust. Right, Yes, I think, uh, I'm not sure about studying, but at least as far as I think, it seems to me like it was more of a like where's the boundary as far as what

can we write about? What can we talk about, and what can we perform and still sell books and tickets? Right Like we want we want people to to be tantalized at the thought of being grossed out or disgusted, but not actually be disgusted. And it's a fine line that's walked, you know, no, of course, and it's subjective, it is. But the other thing about discussed that's pretty interesting is it also appears to be universal. It's like

it's a universal reaction. But what discuss people is not universal. It's culturally bound, I guess right, maybe personal too, sure, I think totally personal. So the the overtime, like as you know, discussed kind of moved out of the realm of philosophers and into science. Um. There were a couple of people who kind of made contributions early on in the field. One was Charles Darwin. He wrote a treatise on it, and his big thing was that disc gust was related to taste, which is true to an extent,

but that was Darwin's big thing. And then later on there was a guy, a psychoanalyst named andrews ang y'all. And ANDREWS. Sangiel basically said that, um, no, no, no, discussed is not really related to taste. It's the it comes from the idea or the thought of putting something horrific into the mouth, which again kind of makes sense

to a certain extent. But then when Rosen and friends came along, it really started to take off and they actually managed to kind of categorize disgust into a few categories, which is what you do when you categorize things. Yeah, there's uh, the first one is core discussed, and that's what you think of if you like, you know, if poop er, I mean, everyone has their own triggers, but if like vomit or feces or like a like in

trails or something like, that's cord discussed. That's an encounter with some sort of like physical contaminant that makes you, you know, make that face right, and that face specifically. That's another universal thing too, apparently the faces. It's called the gape, which is your mouth is open, your tongue may or may not be sticking out, your nose is wrinkled,

and your upper lip is is raised. And just like I don't do that with my mouth open, though, so you just kind of do the the nose wrinkle in the upper lip. I guess like this, but I don't open my mouth. So that's why I sort of like, I don't know when it comes to stuff like this, I'm a little when they make these sweeping statements like

everyone makes this face. Well, everyone may make a variation of a face of like kind of there's like a universal set of of characteristics to the face that you could choose from that would fall into disgust like that. I don't know if you choose anything but maybe your natural reaction. But like I don't open my mouth, and when I read that, like everyone opens their mouth like, no,

that's not true. So um that I think one of the reasons why there is like this idea of it being universal is because evolutionary psychology is we'll see has said like, yes, this is our realm, We've got this, We're gonna explain this one, and to fully explain it,

it basically has to be universal. So I think that's another thing about the point where the study of disgust is right now, Like there's a lot of good ideas, some of which have kind of been shown to be probably true thanks to the Wonder Machine, but it's still it's not fully explained, and so there are some ideas and descriptions that make it seem kind of wacky too, right, Yeah,

for sure. Um. That second kind of discussed getting back to that was animal nature discussed, which is apparently these are things that in anything that reminds us that we're really animals, and that that could there could be a wide range of things they're from, Like some people think people eating with the hands is disgusting, and I think that would qualify under animal nature because like you're eating like an animal. Let's say, um, sex uh, and we'll

get into that more later. But apparently there's a baseline discussed for sex, which I'm not so sure about that one either. And then hygiene, uh is another one. Poor hygiene is the animal nature discussed. Yeah, And another one is the like, like you said, entrails something that's called the um, the body envelope, the ideal body envelope being violated, whether it's like there's a deformity or there is like some sort of um, like an open wound or something

like that. They think that this whole animal nature thing, that all these things remind us that we are animals, and that discussed can be triggered by um, that reminder that we are that we are in fact animals, which is kind of weird, but we'll get into explanations for that later. I can't wait. That's right. And the final one is moral discussed, which uh. And this is one where you know, you can be disgusted with someone's behavior or uh, you know, disgusted with like something a politician does,

or disgusted with racism or bigotry something like that. Right, And that one makes like the least amount of sense if you think about it like that. Okay, the first two were just kind of like, all right, we're like, it's animal related. We might have issues with being animals, so we're we're kind of disgusted by ourselves at the thought that we're animals. Maybe it's a bit more of a stretch than that Core discussed, Like Core discussed makes the most sense out of all of them. Agreed. Uh, yeah,

And I don't even think that the moral discussed. I think that's a different type of thing altogether. So that that other people have proposed that that like they're like some people have said, well English speakers are just misusing

the word discussed. They're talking right. Well, they've done they've done studies of people in the Wonder Machine that shows that the region of the brain, the anterior insula that's usually um, that usually lights up when you're shown a picture of like dog poop and said you're gonna eat this, you know, your your anterior insula lights up. That same region lights up when people are disgusted with um other

people morally, Like remember the ultimatum game. I don't remember it used to come up all the time back in the day in our episodes. But so if somebody was given a really really low offer to take it or leave it, offer that was so low and so unfair that the person said, I'm just leaving it. I actually don't want this free money because I find it insulting.

That same part of the brain that that is triggered by um, like fecal disgust, is also triggered UM, which supports the idea that there actually is a moral dimension to disgust and that we experience it in the same way. That's interesting. It is interesting, but it is like the

it's the most tenuous of those three, I think. So the way this all started out there there are a bunch of theories, but it makes sense that it might have ah been sort of an offshoot of distaste, which is, you know, your body is conditioned thanks to you know, evolution too. If you eat something that's bitter or rotten, like your instinct, your taste instinct is to throw it out and get rid of it. Uh, And it's a

defense mechanism to save your life. And so the idea is that discuss developed out of that and that it's just simply an evolutionary trait. Uh that could have you know, saved took Tok's life, you know, however many years ago. Yeah, and there's there's evidence apparently that this this distaste, which is basically is in an involuntary reaction, is like dropping something that's hot, like you don't stop and think like wow, this cooking pan is about five on the five fifty

degrees fair at height, and then you'd drop it. I should probably drop it like you just dropped the pant. Distaste is the same exact thing, and they've actually seen

it elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Um, So we've probably experienced distaste since before we were humans, and it's just spitting something out that doesn't seem right in a in a um an effort to I guess, keep the body from becoming polluted with disease, right, And they think that distaste somehow became a behavior that was laid over this I'm sorry discussed has was a behavior that became laid

over this existing structure of distaste. Yeah, And that's interesting to me because that means that it becomes all of a sudden, It's not like you have to eat poop to be disgusted, like the mere sight of poop now can discuss somebody, uh, and that just happened over time,

I think. So that is why Rosen says this is, like discussed, is the defining characteristic of human entity, because they suspect that other animals, at the very least almost all other animals don't have the cognitive capacity to use their imagination to imagine themselves eating poop and see in

and being disgusted by it as a result. Right, So that's why they say discussed separates humans from from animals, because it requires imagination to go from an involuntary reaction of spitting out food to not even getting to the point where the food is in your mouth. You can imagine that you would have that reaction and experience the

emotion of disgust. So you don't have to go through that process, that actually very dangerous process of eating something rotten to figure out that you shouldn't be eating it. You can imagine it beforehand. And that's the function that discussed at least core discussed provides humanity. It advances us. We don't have to learn through trial and error over

and over again not to eat rotting meat. We just know on some very basic level that that is a disgusting thing to do when we have a reaction to it. Are you want to take a break? Yeah, all right, everyone, we're gonna be right back right after this with more disgust. So I think we should go back to Took took um and just like how this actually may have worked back in the day. Uh, let's say Took Took and

his buddy mock Mock are strolling along the tundra. You know, Chuck, after eleven years, I am surprised that we have a new character, and I'm very pleased. Yeah, well, don't get used to him, because mack Mok is he's about to die for mock mom. So it Took Took and mack mak are walking along the tundra. Um they find a an old dead antelope, and mock Mock is like, well, this doesn't smell great, but I'll tell you what, I'm gonna eat this thing because I don't have this genetic

trait because my mom eat this stuff. Uh, and it's fine, and Took Tooks like, I don't know, my friend, it looks and smells gross. Um, I do have this genetic trait, So I'm gonna pass on that, So mock Mak's like, you're a sucker. I'm gonna chow down on this rotten antelope. And then mock Mock gets sick and dies before mack

Mak can have any babies. And then if this happens thousands and tens of thousands of times over a huge population, you can see how over time it would be like any physical evolutionary trait that might evolve over time, and all of a sudden, Tuk Tuk's family is thriving today in the United States, all healthy descendants of Took Took and mock Mok is long gone, right, And because Tuk Tuk was able to pass along his genes of being disgusted by rotten meat, and mock Mock died before he

could pass his genes of not being discussed along, So nature or natural selection or revolution selected for for Tuk Tuk's right right, And Tuk Tuk was a prolific lover, as we all know. And I imagine mock Mock in his dying words gasping, I regret never having seen the ocean. Probably, so it's a good Mock Mock. Everyone doesn't know, but

it's true that was so chuck um. That's the that's the evolutionary psychology basis for explaining how disgust came along and was passed along, right, And it makes sense on a very basic level, but it starts to get less and less sensible, as you've already pointed out, as we

start to add more and more inputs of disgust. Right, like, yes, it makes sense that either uh, somehow the idea of not eating meat was passed along, either genetically or even you could say tuk Tuk went back to the hunter gather tribe and said, hey, let me tell you what happened to mock Mark. It was crazy. He ate some rancid antelope, which I guess we all kind of thought was okay up to this point. But let me tell

you steer clear of the ransid antelope. You don't want to have anything to do that because it just killed moch Mock and everyone trusting took took and not just assuming that he hit mock Mock with a rock or something out in the wilderness and left him to die, that he actually did die from eating antelope. This became passed along. This is another way it could have happened,

and that this like ancient knowledge. We just lost, um where the ancient knowledge came from that was actually took took seeing mock mak die, and instead it just became something that, um, we came to think of as like

instinct over time you just don't eat rancid meat. But really what it is, rather than being passed along genetically, it was am I guess a meme uh an idea that was passed along generation to generation and it became so ingrained that we just confuse it for genes or instinct as well, which is another ex nation of it. But both of them have like an evolutionary component to

it for sure. Yeah, and then over time that even changes to where, um, like it's not like humans, Like let's talk about a human body, then like a dead a dead human body, a corpse. Let me get my poking stick. Well, you probably wouldn't poke it because your evolutionary instinct is to probably just stay away from that body. Well,

that's so the stick is for. And it's not just because like well it maybe partially because a dead body just might creep someone out, but there's also an evolutionary basis to avoid that body, get it out of the house. And bury it because it's may have been diseased. Uh And they've even done studies. There was a study in two thousand four in Biology Letters, just the greatest teen

science mag out there, Tiger Beat in Biological Scientists. Uh So, Biology Letters said that they didn't study where they found the images of objects that held what was called a potential disease threat. We're rated as more disgusting. So this is just the idea that um again, because of evolution, we are have trained ourselves to avoid somebody who looks sick. Okay, now we get to another big chink in the armor.

If you ask me, where did we get the idea that a body caused disease and that you could become polluted by some weird magical transference of this disease by handling or coming in close contact with the body like pre germ theory. Pre germ theory. Germ theory is very new. It's about a hundred and fifty years old. Almost on

the nose. We're talking about people's aversion to dead bodies and corpses for eons before that, hundreds of years, if not thousands and thousands of years, right, maybe even more like what if like, I mean, what if someone just going to like back in the day where people like, oh that's great, come here and give me, give me some sugar, right, or were people always sort of repulse by that? Yeah, I I don't know, and we we

don't We don't know. We can't say. We can only go as far back as any like historical reference as we can find. But you can make a pretty good case that an aversion to to something like that or a dead body goes back much further than germ theory. So you you come to that question, where do we get this idea? Where do we get this understanding on a very basic fundamental level that corpses are to be avoided so much so that we are disgusted by them.

And even if you're not disgusted, like I want to wretch if I see a dead body in person, which may be surprised. I think a lot of people would be very surprised that if they actually did see a dead body, they would be they would probably wretch. That

depends on you know, what's going on the state it's in. Yeah, if it's viscerated or something like that, or the smell I think also to um, but the the the idea that that there's something that is keeping you from avoiding it, whether the creeps, whether it's discussed, whether it's some form of a version that is that is acting to put distance between you and the polluting entity. This dead body. Um, where did that come from before germ theory? That's my

big question that I haven't seen answered anywhere. It's where did we get that? Again? Was it somebody handled the dead body and like became directly sick from it, so obviously that even like Took Took could say, yes, the dead body caused this, so we should steer clear of

hanging out around dead bodies. Or um, was there some sort of awareness on on a very basic level that that we haven't figured out how to explain yet that that kept generations and generations of humans relatively healthy before the advent of germ theory and our understanding of it. It is a bit of a mind experiment. It is like, uh, that this perhaps the very sound of someone very ill

and hawking up, you know, phlim. It sounds gross, but like like you say, though, before germ theory, before they knew that that would make that was sickness, or that made someone sick. Maybe people were like, come in here and do that in my face that I love that sound, right, but it just doesn't seem likely. It's like a s MR to me. I don't know, man, It's very hard

to wrap your head around. And also, if you remember, in our Great Stink episode prior, right prior to germ theory, there was miasma theory, which was the smell of something directly polluted you and made you sick that associated with it. But even that, it's like, so, okay, what what made you think that the smell? What makes you think that a dead body, which in and of itself isn't giving off any actual signals that it will make you sick if if it's decayed enough and you like interact with it.

What about that made us associate sickness a transference of sickness that transferences. It's an invisible magic transference of pollution from the dead body to you, the person who's handling the dead body. That is that is significant and remarkable that we came up with that. That's what I think is is just so fascinating about all this. Yeah, and I think this thing about the contingencies plays into because uh,

and it's funny. I have to admit when I read this the word contingencies in my head, I was adding a letter or something, and I kept saying in my head as content genesis, and I was like, what is that content genesis? And finally that's all contingencies Correctly, I was like, man, am I drunk? Like what's going on? So anyway, there are content genesies. That's like facetious. I had that same uh facetious when yeah, what do you

think it's said? Or sounded like fastidious or something like that, and I kept sounding it out and then finally I was like, oh, that's facetious. Yeah, but you were probably like twelve and not a professional broadcaster. I think you had in your eye that was all. So these contingencies um in humans at any time, there there are many

contingencies at work within us, competing against each other. So if you go back to Tuk tuk and mock mock um mock mock uh died, Let's say he did feel some disgust, but it wasn't like but he was also hungry, So that's the competing content genesis and his desire to eat or and not desire his need to eat overcame his low level disgust of like, well it's not doesn't taste great, But I have this other contingency that says I have to eat, so I'm going to eat the

thing and he doesn't die. Right, then it's a little more complicated. It is more complicated, and if you step back and think about it evolutionarily, it would make way more sense for us to not maintain a sense of disgust and be able to eat like rancid meat and then instead learn like like basically develop a gut biome that will will kill any any bacteria decay that could make us sick, so that we we could have like that many more things that are available for us to

eat when we're hard up. That makes way more sense through natural selection and evolution than learning to not eat something.

And I think that's sort of the thing too, though, Like the the winning contingency is ultimately going to be the one that it makes you more fit for you know, replication, right right, so you would for you yea for cloning self self cloning, so the the but yes, so if you have more available food that you can gain energy from in the environment, that would make more sense to adapt to that rather than to adapt an aversion to

stential food source. Right, So that's one question. And then you can also kind of um lay that right over sex as well too. Right. So this this explanation of why we might be a verse, why we have competing

contingencies for sex. Right, Like, you want to be attracted to your mate because you're a person you you find attractive is probably going to be um a good match for you reproductive wise, epecially right, And then yes, and then if if you if you are trying to reproduce with somebody you're disgusted by, they might not be a good match. Reproductive wive was evolutionarily it makes sense, that's

a that's a that's a mental gymnastics right there. To me, it makes more sense to just say, here's an example of evolution screwing us up, of natural selection screwing us up. We developed an ability to feel this gusted by sex because it reminds us that we're animals, and so we're missing out on sex or at least deriving pleasure from sex because we are possibly disgusted by the act of sex.

If we step back and think about it in the right way, right, you see what I'm saying, So there's a lot of holes here, which is why I mean, I've got both of my six shooters. I'm about to start shoot them in the air out of Glee because it's been a while since we had an episode like this. Yeah. Another thing that I found interesting too from this was the the just the mer reaction. Apparently most people open their mouths I keep mind shut, but regardless, we all

have a discussed reaction. I guess if you don't, then you're probably a serial killer. Like if you saw someone like open up and smell like rotten meat and literally just kept this stone face, We're like, that smells really bad, Like they they're clearly sociopaths, right, And that's what Rosen was saying. That's why I discussed is the it's it's the defining human care acteristic because that person would seem non human in that sense, they be a robot kind of. Yeah.

But so if people make this face like that is the cue, Like you don't even need to smell the milk. If I walk in the kitchen and Emily pours some milk and it, uh, well, I was gonna say, I see it clump out of the thing, But that wouldn't count. Like if I see Emily just smell the milk, she makes her disgust face. I don't need to smell it. No, But why is it that there is a chance that Emily or anyone, yes, who will say smell this? Never? No, that's okay, thanks for the warning with the wrinkled nose

and raised up her lip. I know, but when you're married, it's like, no, it's usually I smelled it, like you have to smell it, right, No, I don't want to smell it. I've suffered um. So that becomes like, all of a sudden, a something that like bonds communities together and cultures together even, right, But which which is another? Okay?

So this then we get to the explanation or the moral explanation of disgust of how seeing somebody involving cheating or some sort of unfairness or racism or just something some really anti social um violating behavior that you you experienced disgusted at the very at least people say use the word disgusted. I'm disgusted. I mean maybe it is the same thing. So that's that's I mean, that's what that one Wonder Machine study said. And the other the

other way that they backed it up. There's a really interesting article by Rosen Johnathan Hight, who actually was a contributor in our super Stuff Guide to Happiness if you remember, and then um a guy named um Oh McAuley. What is Clark mcaulay. They're kind of like this big three triad and in the study of disgust as the only three,

there's a couple others, but yeah, kind of. But they in the paper they basically say, okay, so you get the wonder machine evidence suggesting that our actual brain, the part of our brain responsible for experiencing disgust, is lighting up when somebody gives us an unfair offer of money. That's one thing. But also they go around the world and say that in Japan, in Spain and Portugal, um,

all over the world. Whatever that society or or languages culture's word is for disgust, they routinely use it to describe things like the experience of seeing somebody hold poop up to their mouth, and the experience of being treated unfairly or seeing somebody racist. So it's not just people in English misusing an English word discuss, which means actually bad taste. In older Middle English, Um, it's it is

there is some sort of moral component to discuss. It seems like well, even the word distasteful, like is rooted in the word taste. That's that's a similar thing to like behavior can be distasteful and uh rotten, analoge can be distaste, especially if he's a real jerk. Right. Um. The other interesting thing about the work that Jonathan Hate did was this tying it to political ideological ideal ideology. Jeez,

what is wrong with me today? Uh? I thought that was super interesting because they did research and they found that people who are more sensitive to discussed and tend to be more socially conservative, and that can be exploited.

So when you go to a major news outlet that may be conservative, that is why you were more likely to see photos of h unwashed or sick immigrants approaching the border and not like pictures of like the handsomest, most fit immigrant approaching the border, because that will, at least according to this study, they they have higher powerful,

more powerful emotion of disgust. Right. It's it's hijacking your ability to experience moral disgust because apparently it's really really easy to come up and poke, to push a person's disgust buttons and from from what the study says is that this happens a lot way more than we're cognizant of and that if we can make ourselves cognizant of it, we could actually defend against it a little more. Yeah. I mean, they're not gonna Fox News isn't gonna put

the guy you said it. You said, they're not gonna put the guy that looks like Antonio banderis in the immigrant caravan as they're from out you okay as their front page lead photo. You know, it's gonna be the person that's on in the on the stretcher that's sick and dying, and that's going to cause this reaction of disgust like g I they c g I flies like flying around the person. Can't you see Antonio banderis walking

up in a video and going this wall is too sexy? Um. And then the other interesting thing about that that whole study that he was doing, the hate was doing was they also found that people make harsher judgments when they are exposed to a disgusting simulus. So uh, and it usually was a smell like the smell of of a of a tooty booty, a shot duck. Um, and if you smell this flatulence, you would react more harshly towards like a photo of something right now that might discuss

you just a little bit. I want to know the methodology of this study pretty badly, Like did they was? It was just one of those things where they just kind of suddenly the area between you and the researcher filled with the fart smell? Well, where do you get the fart smell? Is there a synthetic or I think there is? You probably like it's a novel the joke shop. They picked up like a spinning bow tie. While they

got there, they canned fart too. Right, They're like, thank you, here's your ten dollars and have a good day, and they shake their hand. There's a buzzer, right exactly. So um, But I mean, like is this so? Were they were talking about something like you know how, what kind of a prison sentence would you excuse me, what kind of a prison sentence would you give to somebody? And like this this fart smells this kind of comes up, but

like they're just not talking about it. I would guess that's how you would have to do it right, dude. I had a stranger asked me the other night if I farted? Oh yeah, had you know? I was at the Fleetwood Mac concert standing in the beer line, and this guy in front of me turned around with his wife and fully just said did you fart? And I went nope, And I was like, I would tell you if I did. Did He looked at his wife and go, did you fart? But then we got to talking and

I was like, guys, I hate to tell you. I said, I don't even smell anything, so I think you're looking in the wrong direction. And then he felt like I was a little drunk, so I didn't care. I was playing along. But then he felt like really bad and was overapologetic. I was like, dude, you're gonna ask someone if they farted, don't then turn around and be weirdly ashamed of that, right, get all weepy, just own it? So um, yeah, does the guy not know the whole

he who smelled it? Delta? Idiom it was the first date and that was the deal. Maybe he did. Yeah, he really played it off well at Southside. All right, should we take a break? I think we should? All right, I'm gonna go fart in the hallway. We'll be right back. Thank you for that, Chuck. We'll be right back. All right, it's back, Chuck is back. Now everything's fine in here. And um, we are still talking about disgust. Let me let's let's let's um just kind of go over this

real quick one more time. Okay. So we started out with this this mechanim miss of distaste um where we like, involuntarily spit something out that's gross that occurs elsewhere in the animal kingdom. And then over time we figured out how to create a new um adaptation, a new behavior that is overlaid over that same brain circuitry where we spent something out, and we call that disgust. And it was it originally started out as an aversion to things like poop and vomit and and that kind of stuff.

And then that evolved even further because at some point we said we're better than animals, and I don't like to be reminded of an animal. And I guess that desire to not be reminded of an animal developed so much that it became overlaid over that disgusted emotion that had been that had hijacked the distaste emotion, and then at some point finally it reached moral um, the moral structure, and that hijacked the animal and the core and the distaste to where now just the idea of somebody behaving

in a certain way can disgust us. And the whole thing that really kind of changed to make it human was the the addition of um imagination and symbolism to these ideas, so that we didn't even have to taste or smell or see anything anymore. Just thinking about this kind of stuff could disgust us. And that's where we're at and discussed research, and that's where we're at in the podcast too. Frankly, Wow, that's a nice recap. Thank you,

all right. So, uh, culturally, you know, it depends on where you are in the world and what you might be disgusted by. So while while it is universal, it's not like every single thing is universal. Um. People uh eat things in some parts of the world that other parts of the world might think are disgusting. Um. And that again is a thing that basically says, I'm a part of this family, I'm a part of this culture,

I'm a part of this group. Um. The fact that like all eat eyeballs right out right out of a fish, right up a fish said to scoop it out and eat it. Right. Um, I might think that's disgusting, but that's not like necessary, Like taboos are not the same. Uh, And cultures all over the world. Yeah, whether it's food, apparently they think maybe even you know, well, cannibal cannibalism. Obviously, some cultures don't view incest as um as taboo as

as other cultures do. So some of the things that we would think would be universally disgusting aren't universally disgusting. And the whole idea of food too shows that you can, um learn to not find something disgusting or never find it disgusting at all because you were just raised in a culture that eats this food and values it. But to somebody else from outside of the culture, when they see that food, they are disgusted by it. So yeah, there's a lot of lack of universality in disgust that

we might assume would be there that actually isn't. Yeah. I mean vegetarianism and veganism is a perfect example. Uh. Someone can eat meat until until they're in their mid twenties and then all of a sudden switch to veganism, and a year later, the mere sight of meat might discuss them, whereas the year before they were challenged down on it. Which I would guess that's just like you were structuring your brain circuitry basically, right, Yeah, I think

so probably, I mean that would make sense. But so something that never disgusted you before can become genuinely disgusted or the other way around, huh, I imagine. Well, yeah, I mean you can learn to eat other cultures foods that you were disgusted by previously and eat meat now right right, Yeah, yeah, you can also learn to eat broccoli over time. BROCCOLI's good, it's it's not though it really is roast in the oven the lish Okay, I

will give you that. Roasted BROCCOLI's okay. But if it's steamed or just like floppy in any way ship or form, I've had bad experiences with it over over the years. It sounds like someone's overcooking your broccoli. Not anymore, but yes, I think Dad used to used to overcook it quite a bit. Yeah. I go for al dente when it comes to most vegetables. Yeah, but roasted roasted is good mushy is a is a food quality that kind of

discussed me. So, uh, food preparation is important. Like I know, we're just kind of kidding about the broccoli, but like, let's say, um, an eggplant or a squash. If you cook that thing until it's really mushy, it's it's really gross to me. But I will totally eat an eggplant if it's nice and firm. Yeah yeah, I mean yeah, texture is enormous with it. It also affects taste too, which doesn't make any sense except for like it's part of the experience of it, right, Yeah, but true disgust

happens for me. I think it's not just like I don't prefer that, like mushy food really really grosses me out. Well, there's something that that um that it actually hit a pond early on, and this is that like disgust is it goes around our conscious thought, right, Like you're not like this this broccoli is is not to my preference.

It is way too floppy and mushy, and i'd be I prefer to not have it in my mouth anymore so, and you spit it out and it just falls back onto your plate instead you put it in your mouth, especially if you're not expecting it to be mushy and you start chewing it like you expected to be good.

Your reaction without even thinking it's going to be spit it out probably, and you might you might not actually spit it out, but that will be your first reaction, and you might have to stop yourself, like bring your napkin up to your mouth or whatever. And that's one of the things that like really kind of is a hallmark characteristic of disgust. When it is experienced, it goes around our intellect and our our um conscious thought. It's

a basic reaction. Yeah, and it can also get out of hand as far as the uh if the idea is that at its root, we're trying to avoid disease and dying. Um. We've all heard of of cases phobia is really that developed um and pathologies out of fear of germs or dirt or cleanliness. UM. Anyone who's ever seen the great movie Safe by Todd Haynes, Um. That was a movie about that where this woman sort of slowly unwinds and eventually ends up in a in a like a a community where everyone is obsessed with this

kind of compulsive cleanliness. Who's the woman, It's Julian Moore. I haven't seen that yet. Is it pretty good? It was? It was great, I mean it was. It's a long time ago. So it's like in the early nineties, I think,

like some of her earlier work. But that's just an example of how, um, how that can happen and how it can get out of hand until basically you have a compulsive disorder that may have started out of a legit environmental like discuss reaction to disease, right, Yeah, that well, that's what they think is the basis of possibly all of it that has to do with disgust or like a drive to to feel clean or to get rid of germs or to be afraid of germs, that kind

of thing. That it's it's your um, your being indoctrinated into disgust when a little too far in your brain, your brains disgusted reaction just became too powerful, and now it has this kind of crippling effect on your life. Yeah, but it can also like it's oddly there are things that have nothing to do with disease and dying that have been kind of labeled as disgusting and ed points out acne as one of them that might trigger a disgust reaction in some people. And it's really completely harmless.

It is, but it's playing upon in an inadvertent way, our predisposition to be grossed out by things like disease. Yeah, sore, a pox, a pustule. It has nothing to do with that. It just kind of resembles it in the exact same way. People find slugs and snails disgusting, uh, And they suggest that it's because they look like they're covered in mucus. Even though it's not actually mucus. It reminds us of mucus. So we're disgusted at the thought of touching one of

those things. Same thing. They're not disease carriers, but they remind us of it. That's the key, because disgusted works hand in hand with human imagination. I got Emily one of those poppet pals. Have you seen those? No? What is it? You know how she's pretty obsessed with with zip popping and she doesn't watch she's not one of those people who watches the stuff on YouTube. But it's just like a personal thing. But they saw it on

Shark Tank. There's this thing. Now it looks It's about the size of a bar soap, but it's made out of silicon. It's kind of a squishy, rubber rectangular bar and you squirt to this like, uh, I don't know what it's made of. It's it's almost like Chrisco or something. Um I think it's plant based and you fill it up with that and the top of it is covered with all these little dimple holes and you pop them and it comes, it comes sneaking out just like like

the best pimple you've ever seen. That's amazed. So I kept like trying to imagine that, like this was going on the person's face, and it's like just to basically like, here, keep busy with this and leave my face alone. Yeah, you just whatever, You set it in your lap and just pop away. That's really awesome, man, it's it's it was really satisfying for it too. I thought she might be like, no, this is not the same, but she

was obsessed with it first. That's awesome. Couple of days that's Is there any great human thing that Shark Tank hasn't give given us? I don't know, I can't. I can't think of one. Um Umi has a thing for cauliflower ear, and she'll sometimes watch videos of cauliflower ear being drained and it's like, I can't hang man wrestler. No, not not that I know of, but Mr Chance I guess right, she better have Mr Chance fining. She comes in and she finds you like on the carpet, rolling

your ear on the floor. Didn't that how wrestlers get it? I think they get it from like a trauma to the ear, like a punch of the ear, like a an impact of the ear, and then like it swells up and then it turns into like scar tissue or like just pussy infected edema. Well, which is why they wear the ear covers. Yes, well, that and to look cool, to look kind of cool somehow. Um so that offsets the singlet, which is the least school thing you can wear.

It's pretty uncool. I have to say, sorry wrestlers, but the entire rest of the world thinks that the singlets look uncool. It's not just us. Oh boy, So let's talk about the disgust scale real quick? Do you have that? Yeah? You know, I didn't even look at this because I thought it might be fun if you just went through a few of those with me. Okay, well, this is a great idea, Chuck, get into a game still innovating

after eleven years. I'm so proud of us. So John Paul Rosen and John Hight and a couple of other people came up with the sorry Clark McAuley and Clark McAuley. I'm just going to say the third person. They came up with a disgust scale. Okay, So, Chuck, between zero and four, zero being strongly disagree and four being strongly agree, meaning it's very untrue or very true about you. Please indicate how much you agree with each of the following

statements or how true it is. Between zero and wet three four zero strongly disagree it's very untrue about you, and four is strongly agree very true about you. You might be willing, sorry, I might be willing to try eating monkey meat under some circumstances. Strongly disagree. Four. That's zero, okay, zero. It would bother me to be in a science class

and to see a human hand preserved in a jar. Obviously, that would not bother me, because when I saw the human head in a bucket, very famously, my reaction was, Huh, there's a human head whereas a person with me was really disgusted, right, yeah, and I think understandably. So, um, I love that story. Okay, here's another one. I never let any part of my body touch the toilet seat in public restrooms. Agree or disagree, untrue or true. I'm

just gonna ditch the numbers because it's confusing me. Okay, I don't That doesn't really bother me that much. I know that probably really disgusted you. Uh no, well yeah, I just have to go to another place. Oh when I do that, I don't mind. Man, I know that's gross probably, but whatever. Okay, here's one more um from this one. Then we're gonna do another set. You're ready. Um, I would rather eat a piece of fruit than a piece of paper. Well, yeah, I'd rather eat a piece

of fruit. Okay, Okay, I think that's just like a baseline one that they use. Okay, so then between zero and four rate these not disgusting at all? Are extremely disgusting. Just say one of those two. Okay, you see maggots on a piece of meat in an outdoor garbage pail, very disgusting, you, I agree. Your friend's pet cat dies and you have to pick up the dead body with your bare hands. Um, not disgusted, just sad. Okay. I mean I've done that with all of my animals that

have passed. I took care of the bodies, right. I think this leaves out that it was hit by a car and it's now part of the road. Basically, Yeah, that's a medium disgusting and sad. Okay. Yeah, well yeah, it said you're about to drink a glass of milk when you smell it is spoiled, And then in parentheses, weirdly enough, it says because Emily just changed it under your nose and said, smell this, that's weird. Um. Yeah,

the smell of turned food grosses me out a lot. Okay, Uh, while you're walking through a tunnel under a railroad track, you smell urine. I've been in New York enough times, it's not that big of a deal. It still gets me. Man, I think smelling urine is worse than smelling poop for some reason. Really Yeah, interesting? Okay. Two more, you see a man with his intestines exposed after an accident. Yeah, that's pretty high up there. Yeah yeah, I think so too.

And then last chuck, you see someone put ketchup on vanilla ice cream and eat it. Yeah, that's gross, Okay, although it's interesting though when I thought about the bodies and trails, like, I don't love it, but I can watch like a surgery. It's not my favorite thing, but I'm not like fully disgusted. But if it's an accident, I think that so it might be a contextual thing

as well. So one of the things that I experience when I see like some something in surgery, and I think, yeah, context definitely has a lot to do with it in that case too. But if I see like a surgery, like remember there used to be that TV network that was nothing but surgery. You remember it was in like the late eighties, early nineties, I think, um, but uh, to see that, I'll get like faint right like, And it's not necessarily the side of blood. It's like the

site of viscera. I get a little faint, and it never made sense to me. I think definitely as part of it too. But I think also part of the disgust reaction is that your heart rate and blood pressure lower, which would explain why you start to feel faint. Like I don't feel queasy or nauseated or like I'm gonna wretch. I feel like I need to sit down for a second, which is I guess it is still part of the

disgust reaction. It just isn't the the the nausea version of it's but it's still revulsion, but a weird, fainty version. So in the med school sitcom that we star in, when they pull the sheet back, you start saying, how don't feel two good guys, and we're like, yeah, you're so funny, and then all of a sudden you hit the deck. I think the way I would play it is even more straightforward, where my eyes just go up in the back of my head and I fall backward

in response to the sheep being pulled. It's a good move. I can't wait for that movie to come out. Ah, you got anything else? I don't think so. I'd be surprised if you did. We've gone on for a good six seven minutes beyond when we should have stopped. I think I like that game aspect of that one that was one. Oh. Your score, by the way, indicates that you do experience disgust from time to time. I'm not a serial killer, no, no, uh, And I don't know if you guys heard her not, but Jerry also gave

her answers as well. That's right. Uh. If you want to know more about disgust, you can just go look at some weird stuff on the internet. It's out there for you. Uh. And since I said that it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this one of the many dyslexia emails we got. Those were really rolling in

from people who have overcome dyslexia and adults living with dyslexia. UM. So this one is from from a fellow Atlanta named Audrey Short, and she says this, Hey guys, I have dyslexia, and I was so happy to hear you talking about my learning disability. I was diagnosed when I was about ten uh and went to the Shanks School in Atlanta,

which is specifically for children with dyslexia. In fact, she sent in a following follow up email just to clarify that, um, we learned how to read and write using a technique called Orton Gillingham. When I left after the fourth grade, I could actually read. More importantly, I love to read and devoured every book I could get my hands on. While I graduated top of my class. I had to work twice as hard as my classmates to keep up

with the required readings and homework. Uh. My peers seemed to think that my extra time I received for exams was the reason I did so well, not the countless hours on late nights I spent um learning the material. While this bullying did affect me, did not discourage me from pursuing my education at college. I attended Miami University and Ohio, graduating this May with a three point nine nine g p A Biochemistry and Physics. I planned to tend a PhD program at Harvard or you see, Berkeley.

I'm not saying this to brag, but to tell other children with dyslexia to keep trying. I know so many students are afraid to ask for extra time or accommodations because they don't want to be bullied or stand out. I'm proud of my dyslexia because, uh, it has forced me to learn how to stand up for my student rights. I've made it to where I am today by utilizing

the tools given to me, like extra time. And I want to encourage people with learning disabilities to seek help because you are intelligent and your unique perspective just might change your field entirely. Nice Audrey, Audrey Short great and Audrey that is great emails, so that kind of replaces that whole like, look, this famous person made it. You can just tell people, let me tell you about Audrey Short.

I agreed. Okay, way to go, Audrey, that's fantastic. Congratulations early on um graduating with a three point nine nine man, that's impressive, and good luck in grad school too. If you want to get in touch with us, like Audrey did, you can go onto stuff you Should Know dot com and check out the social links there. You can also send us an email. Send it off to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com