The 6 types of disgust (and their characteristics)

There is considerable consensus within the field of psychology to say that human beings have a series of basic emotions, considered universal, at be shared by people from all kinds of cultures and countries, although these emotions are experienced with different nuances, among which is the disgust.

A group of researchers from the "London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine" have carried out an investigation on disgust, in which more than 2,500 people participated, having found 6 types of disgust: disgust towards certain animals/insects, sex, lack of hygiene, unusual appearances, wounds/injuries and bad food condition.

In this article we will see what are the types of disgust and their characteristics.

• Related article: "The 8 types of emotions (classification and description)"

What is disgust?

disgust is one of the primary emotions that the human being possesses. Specifically, it is considered one of the negative emotions, although in reality it fulfills a protective function for people, since it can protect us against possible threats to our health, such as the ingestion of spoiled food or objects that are dangerous because they are potentially contaminants.

As occurs with other basic emotions, disgust has a series of very diverse components, such as cognitive ones (for example, interpretation at a cognitive level of that a certain stimulus can be contaminating), physiological (for example, activation of the parasympathetic nervous system in the face of a stimulus that causes disgust), phenomenological (p. g., the subjective level experience of disgust or disgust) and, of course, behavioral (p. g., avoiding approaching stimuli that are interpreted as potentially infectious).

On the other hand, there is research that has found a relationship between the emotion of disgust and the development of some mental disorders such as some that are behind various types of sexual dysfunctions and many of the anxiety disorders. Therefore, it would be important to carry out more research regarding the relationship between disgust and some types of psychopathology in order to delimit empirically and conceptually the different types of disgust and clarify which of them are associated with which types of psychopathologies or symptoms related to the themselves.

However, although more studies are needed regarding the different types of disgust and their relationship with different mental disorders, it has been carried out quite relevant research in this regard, as we will see later go ahead.

• You may be interested: "Secondary emotions: what they are, types and characteristics"

The most important types of disgust

Although no one likes to experience unpleasant emotions such as disgust, which causes some kind of upset stomach, this primal emotion serves an important evolutionary role in protect us from pathogens or any other type of infection threat, so this emotion has aroused much interest for researchers.

In 2018, an article was published that talked about the classification of the different types of disgust in 6 different categories; It is worth mentioning that all these types of disgust really appear as a protective factor against the possibility of contracting some type of infection, although the risk does not always exist and could be the result of a series of erroneous beliefs of some persons.

This classification was carried out by a group of researchers from the "London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine" who carried out a study in which More than 2,500 people participated and were presented with 75 types of scenarios that could be considered disgusting and related to the possibility that the subjects participating in the research would interpret them as potentially suggestive of infectious vectors to a greater or lesser extent. lifetime. Therefore, all participants had to rate on a Likert scale from "no disgust" to "extreme disgust" in each of the 75 scenarios.

According to the classification developed by the group of researchers mentioned above, the People can present 6 different types of disgust, which we will briefly explain to continuation.

1. Disgust towards lack of hygiene

The first of the types of disgust that we can find in the classification is the one that people in general can present toward displays or evidence of certain types of unhygienic behavior or toward the untidy presence of some persons. Thus, has a strong influence on social relations.

• Related article: "Obsession with cleaning: causes, characteristics and tips"

2. Disgust towards certain species of animals and insects

Disgust towards certain species of animals that could be carriers of some type of infectious disease (p. eg, rodents or birds, among others) and mosquitoes and other types of insects that present disease vectors, are another of the categories that we can find among the different types of disgust.

3. Disgust towards certain types of sexual activities

Another type of disgust in this classification is the one that some people can feel towards certain types of sexual activities, such as unprotected sex, sex with strangers or promiscuous sexual activities, among other types.

Within this type of disgust we could also find the sensitivity to disgust that some people have that reaches interfering with sexual pleasure, thus being implicated in some types of cover-up sexual dysfunction closely related to sexual desire (for example, hyperactive sexual desire), as well as with vaginismus, aversion to sex and/or sexual arousal.

• You may be interested: "Sex phobia (erotophobia): causes, symptoms and treatment"

4. Disgust at signs of infection in other people

Among the different types of disgust of this classification carried out by the research group, finds disgust in front of the signs of infection that other people present, including himself within this category unusual body shapes, wheezing, coughing, or unusual appearance.

This type of disgust could become associated with various phenomena of social rejection towards people who are sick.

5. Disgust against spoiled food

The fifth of the types of disgust classified by the researchers is disgust at spoiled food, being able to be detected through the senses, such as through visual samples of certain signs what denote that a food is not in good condition to be consumed (eg. g., mold stains on bread), through its unpleasant taste or through an unpleasant odor or stench that food usually gives off when it is not in good condition.

6. Injuries or signs of infection in the body

The last of the types of disgust that we can find in this classification is disgust in the face of certain injuries or certain stimuli that are related to some signs of infection on the surface of the body, such as boils or blisters, among others.

Conclusions about these variants of disgust

It should be noted that the researchers who carried out this classification, although they hoped that the results of the study would correspond directly to different types of disease threats, they actually did so to the extent that they were able to capture vectors infectious through obvious signs of the social and biological environment present in the environment in each of the situations exposed in the experiment.

In other words, the study subjects came to show greater revulsion in situations than in which could interpret a possible infectious threat with the naked eye than in others in which it was more difficult to detect a possible threat, although it was actually more dangerous