Disgust as a disease-avoidance mechanism.

Many researchers have claimed that the emotion of disgust functions to protect us from disease. Although there have been several discussions of this hypothesis, none have yet reviewed the evidence in its entirety. The authors derive 14 hypotheses from a disease-avoidance account and evaluate the evidence for each, drawing upon research on pathogen avoidance in animals and empirical research on disgust. In all but 1 case, the evidence favors a disease-avoidance account. It is suggested that disgust is evoked by objects/people that possess particular types of prepared features that connote disease. Such simple disgust are directly disease related, are acquired during childhood, and are able to contaminate other…