Disgust is an important safety mechanism that protects us from harm by warning us of potential biological hazards or the crossing of moral boundaries. It can also drive compulsive behaviors or cause social challenges if we don’t learn to regulate it.
This is Disgusting
Disgust is an emotional response that drives us to avoid harm from things like rotten food, bodily fluids, infections, parasites, or the crossing of moral boundaries.
You might have noticed that certain smells can trigger disgust rapidly. This is because inputs from our sense of smell are connected directly with the limbic system, the brain’s emotional response and memory control center. This direct connection enables lightning fast responses to things that can cause us harm if we eat them. If something smells disgusting your limbic system will immediately trigger behavioral responses like pulling away rapidly, feeling nauseous, or the gag reflex.
A disgust response can also be triggered when we perceive the crossing of one of our moral or ethical boundaries. This type of disgust is based on our individually developed beliefs about social norms, morality, and ethical behavior. It can trigger the same physiological responses which lets us know that a person may present a risk to the social structures that provide us stability and safety.
How Disgust Helps Us
Disgust is a vital tool for helping to keep us safe from harmful pathogens, toxins, and parasites. It also warns of potentially destabilizing and harmful people. It can even help us regulate our own behaviors to prevent us from being a destabilizing or harmful influence.
Disgusting Problems
If unregulated, disgust can also cause some challenges with the way we view ourselves and others. It can feed stigma and prejudice. It can drive intrusive thoughts, avoidance, or fuel compulsions. It can bias our thoughts leading to moral rigidity and black and white thinking. It can even eat away at our self-esteem leading to unwarranted feelings of shame.
Regulating Disgust
One of the first things we need to do to learn to regulate disgust is recognize the difference between core disgust and moral/social disgust. Core disgust is triggered by a rapid response of our nervous system while moral/social disgust is a by-product of our perceptions and beliefs.
It is less likely that you will find a need to regulate core disgust. This is a safety function and it is probably a good thing that a pile of rotten food makes your stomach churn. However, you may need to develop the capability and capacity to tolerate being around foul, rotten, and gross substances in order to do your work or take care of your responsibilities. The trick here is gradual exposure in order to reduce over reactions and learn to manage the physiological response as required.
The trickier side of disgust is learning to detect and regulate the negative impacts of misplaced moral/social disgust. Here are some things that might help
- Mindful awareness – developing the ability to recognize feelings of disgust and the thoughts and behaviors associated with these feelings
- Cognitive Challenging – Exploring the thoughts and beliefs that drive the feeling of disgust and challenging them when they present harmful consequences.
- Self-Compassion – if the disgust is self deprecating, it might be worth asking the question “would I talk about my best friend like this?”
- Moral-Flexibility – learning to soften unjustifiable moral rigidity in your thinking. There are many ways to be good.
A Less Disgusting World
By understanding our emotional, physiological, and cognitive disgust response we can begin to take responsibility for acting in a way that allows us to appropriately regulate our behaviors. Ultimately we need our disgust response to help keep us safe, but we also need to make sure we aren’t letting it control us in ways that prevent us from living the life we want to live.
Thanks For Reading
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