I was listening to an interview on the radio today with a lady (I didn't catch her name, unfortunately) who was just running an interesting experiment.

You know how when you hear something that is morally "wrong", the words that generally surface to describe the incident are things like disgusting or repulsive? These are actually adjectives used for physical things, like food. The experiment that was carried out was to see if people actually feel physically disgusted when they come in contact with a story that disturbs their morals.

This is how they carried out the experiment:

The subjects were fixed up with sticky motion sensors in various places on their face, which would detect when the feeling of disgust arose (nose would wrinkle up, upper lip would raise, and any other disgust-face characteristics there are)

The subjects were then given sips of "digusting" tasting liquids (ie. too salty, bitter, sour, etc.) and their facial reactions were recorded, showing disgust as expected. Next they were shown gross pictures, like rotting meat, insects, and other things of that nature. Again, disgusted facial reactions were recorded.

Finally, a little scenario was set up. The following is the example that was given in the interview. The subjects were paired off, and given say $10 to "share" between each other. When subject A told subject B that he was going to take $9 of that and give B the other $1, subject B ended up with the disgusted facial reaction. Even though B was to be better off with $1 than she was with 0, it was still a disgusting situation.

I thought that was very interesting...even in such a non-threatening scenario, people show disgust. Is this a learned thing, do you think? Or could it be an overall reaction to displeasure?

Taking things a little bit further...does anyone ever feel physically sick when you hear a bit of a horror story on the news? Do you think that would be like an extreme version of the facial reaction experiment? Why would we feel sick if it is just a story...not something we ate, or a flu bug?

Any thoughts?

The subjects were paired off, and given say $10 to "share" between each other. When subject A told subject B that he was going to take $9 of that and give B the other $1, subject B ended up with the disgusted facial reaction. Even though B was to be better off with $1 than she was with 0, it was still a disgusting situation.

I thought that was very interesting...even in such a non-threatening scenario, people show disgust. Is this a learned thing, do you think? Or could it be an overall reaction to displeasure?

Hmm, interesting. I think I would have shown a disgusted face.. but more of a "that's just bad ethics!" sort of look. For example, if someone gave it to me and told me to share, I'd give the same amount to the other person, or a bit more. Never would I actually keep it all to myself, or give it all to the other person. I just like to do justice, to be honest. And I'm also the sort of person whereby if someone were to give me money and tell me to do something with it, I do it. For example, this whole "sharing" thing. Or like, if someone were to give money to me as a gift and said "use it on food", I'd do that. Not spend it on some tickets to see a Fox fly or some weird thing like that (No offense, Fox).

So for me, it wouldn't be about displeasure or needing more. If I were the one receiving the $1, I'd just hate it 'cause it wouldn't be how I'd treat someone, basically. Not so much "I need that money and I'm not happy with $1". That's more ungrateful.

Taking things a little bit further...does anyone ever feel physically sick when you hear a bit of a horror story on the news? Do you think that would be like an extreme version of the facial reaction experiment? Why would we feel sick if it is just a story...not something we ate, or a flu bug?

I've felt sick a few times. For example, over stories where fathers have raped their children and have had children through them. Or people doing bad things to young and innocent kids. Just makes me angrily sick. Again, I think it's a morals thing. We'd hate for people to treat others like that. Therefore, we're disgusted by it.

Oh, and I always feel sick over weird things that people eat that I couldn't see myself eating. Even if it is a story. Maybe 'cause it takes you out of your mental 'comfort zone'? *shrug* Like.. eating snails.. :|

/me gives Vik some garlic snails!
Oh, and I feel sick when I see snakes and spiders too. Not sure if this should be included :P Not sure if I actually even answered your questions properly O_o

I suppose that we'd feel sick from the story because we already know that the act of eating something is disgusting. For example, if you've eaten rotting meat, then you already know that it is disgusting. So then, just the IDEA of eating it would disgust you; it's in place to stop you from EATING IT AGAIN. :)

Similarly, one of the benefits of our capacity for language is that we don't have to eat something disgusting to find out that we shouldn't eat it, as somebody else can tell you "heyyy, don't be eating that".

As for non-threatening scenarios, I was awake in the AM today (!!!) and flicked through some channels and ended up watching Derek Acorah for a bit. I was disgusted, and showed it with wincing, lip-curling etc. It's not because I didn't think that he'd be tasty to eat (although I don't think that he would, I imagine that he'd be quite sinewy), so yes I don't know why it's the same reaction for that as with actual "disgust".

Again, I sort of think that the disgust felt when hearing about a grizzly murder on the news, especially if pictures are shown (which on the news they're not, but as an example), then the disgust you feel is to protect yourself. It makes you want to avoid the situation which you are witnessing, makes you want to distance yourself from the nastiness.

I know what you mean, Nerdy....I feel sick to my stomach too when I hear things involving kids. In fact, the worst example I have ever encountered was when I heard about that daycare shooting in Belgium (it was Belgium, right? Can't quite remember) last winter/spring....I heard about it on the radio, as I was driving to pick up Kaspar from daycare. Nearly made me sick.

I think that's a good point that Fox made about a natural instinct to try and avoid "the nastiness" and protect yourself. Just interesting that we use the term disgust for such things as a murder story, or even a loathsome tv anchor or host. Truthfully, I feel the same way whenever I come across Oprah (and I definitely don't think that she would be appetizing in any way, shape, or form. Too much plastic for my taste!).