Disgust: Definition, Feelings & Expressions

By Nathalie Boutros, Ph.D.
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.

Discover the roots of disgust and how physical and moral disgust impact your life.

*This page may include affiliate links; that means we earn from qualifying purchases of products.

Disgust is one of our basic emotions. We feel disgusted every day in response to a huge variety of objects and situations. Smelling sour milk, stepping in dog excrement, and seeing a used bandage all elicit feelings of disgust. However, we may also feel disgusted when we hear about the sexual improprieties of celebrities and politicians, when we are witness to flagrant racism, and when we are confronted with growing wealth inequality. In this article, we’ll talk about the different ways that feeling disgusted can impact your life and your well-being.

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What is Disgust? (A Definition)

Disgust has been identified as one of the universal emotions shared by all people (Rozin & Fallon, 1987). It is characterized as feelings of revulsion, of wanting to get away from the offensive object. Of all the basic emotions, disgust is perhaps the most physical, often accompanied by a sensation of nausea.

Disgust is often understood as a protective instinct. Your feelings of disgust stop you from eating spoiled food and ensure that you stay away from excrement and other potential sources of disease and infection.

Different meanings of disgust
But, we don’t only feel disgust in response to physical objects with the potential to make us sick. We often refer to behaviors and actions that we deeply dislike as disgusting. An online search of recent news headlines that feature the word disgusting revealed that racism, police brutality, political maneuvering, opposing media outlets, and stigma about mental health, among other things, were all labeled as disgusting. Do these various actions and ideas all elicit the same visceral feeling that you get when you smell vomit? Or is disgust used in such headlines as a metaphor?

The disgust felt in response to moral transgressions may have evolved from the more basic disgust felt in response to physically offensive objects. Paul Rozin, pioneering researcher in the psychology of disgust, puts it this way: Disgust has evolved from protecting the body to protecting the soul and the social order.

Physical and Moral Disgust

Physical Disgust
At a primitive level, emotions drive you to behave in ways that will ensure your survival. For example, fear drives you to escape a dangerous situation. Disgust drives nausea, vomiting, and other behaviors that either prevent things from entering your mouth or remove things that have already entered your mouth. This suggests that disgust has origins in eating, food, and ingestion.

Moral Disgust
From these origins, disgust has evolved. You can also be disgusted by sexual practices, bad hygiene, and reminders of death or injury. Moreover, you can also feel disgusted by contact with undesirable others and by moral offenses (Tybur et al., 2012).

Our sense of disgust expanded from the physical to the moral as we became an increasingly social species (Curtis, 2011). Perhaps because pathogens and parasites transmit within and across groups of people, the emotion of disgust is strongly involved in prejudice, xenophobia, and stigmatization (Olatunji & Sawchuck, 2005).

The Feeling of Disgust

Some triggers for disgust, like vomit and feces, are universally experienced as disgusting by all humans. Other triggers are individually influenced by culture and personal history. In some cultures, insects are commonly eaten, while in other cultures this practice is deemed disgusting. In some cultures, shoes are commonly worn in the home, while others regard this behavior as disgusting.

Can disgust feel pleasurable?
​Interestingly, feelings of disgust can sometimes be experienced as pleasurable, in a phenomenon called benign masochism (Rozin et al., 2013). The popularity of dermatologist Dr. Sandra Lee, better known as Dr. Pimple Popper, attests to the appeal that disgusting experiences can have. The Dr. Pimple Popper youtube channel features close-up videos of oozing blackheads and cyst-removals and has over 7 million subscribers. The experience of watching a minor but very real medical procedure causes you to feel disgusted without having to face any real threat. Our ability to feel that we can withstand such menaces produces a gratifying sense of mastery.

Research on Disgust

Research has found, time and again, that feelings of disgust are often illogical. For example, when presented with two pieces of fudge that you know are edible, tasty, not harmful, and are identical to one another in every way except that one is shaped to look like dog feces, you are unlikely to ever choose the feces-shaped fudge. Similarly, you’re unlikely to drink orange juice that has been in contact with a sterilized dead cockroach or to drink apple juice from a clean and unused bedpan. In all of these situations, the feelings of disgust induced by vermin, excrement, or urine contaminate the food items, even if you know that the items are perfectly safe and tasty (Haidt et al., 1994).

Similarly, exposure to disgusting imagery (e.g., “the worst toilet in Scotland” scene from the movie Trainspotting), reduces the perceived value of nearby items (Lerner et al., 2016). Feelings of disgust can contaminate nearby objects, even when those objects are in no way related to the disgust that you are feeling. Advertising rarely employs disgusting imagery. Other negative emotions, like fear and anger, may drive sales in some situations. However, if potential customers feel disgusted when they see your product, even if your product is the solution to a disgusting problem, they’ll probably value your product less.

The contaminating power of disgust is enduring. Would you eat a bowl of your favorite soup after it had been stirred with a “used but thoroughly cleaned” fly swatter? Most people would not. The fly swatter, having been contaminated by exposure to a disgusting squished insect, is forever disgusting.

Disgust Sensitivity

Your threshold for disgust can be reduced by intimacy (Tybur et al., 2018). Defecation normally induces strong feelings of disgust. These feelings are often much less strongly felt when it comes to people that you are close to and care about. This reduction in disgust sensitivity allows you to care for children and other loved ones who require it.

Individual disgust sensitivity can be estimated from a person’s responses to a 32-item questionnaire. This questionnaire asks you to rate how disgusted you would feel by a variety of hypothetical situations such as smelling urine on a walk (Haidt et al., 1994). An overall score of disgust sensitivity can be calculated and used to predict how likely you are to engage in safe but seemingly disgusting behaviors such as eating fudge shaped like dog excrement.

Disgust Sensitivity and Political Orientation
Psychology researcher David Pizarro has developed an extensive research program using a disgust sensitivity scale to predict political orientations and opinions. Across several studies, Pizarro and colleagues have found that conservatives are more easily disgusted than liberals. As discussed in the video below, conservative opinions can also be experimentally induced in the laboratory. People report more negative attitudes towards gay men when in a room filled with a disgusting smell (Inbar et al., 2012). Similarly, when people fill out a survey next to a poster reminding them to wash their hands, they tend to report more conservative beliefs (Helzer & Pizarro, 2011). Simply being reminded of something disgusting had a measurable impact on political beliefs.

Video: The Strange Politics of Disgust

Disgust on The Wheel of Emotion

Disgust is one of the eight primary human emotions in Robert Plutchik’s wheel of emotions. In the version of the wheel seen below, disgust is depicted in pink.

Machine Elf 1735, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The eight primary emotions are depicted in the first ring surrounding the central pie. As you move inwards towards the center of the wheel, the intensity of the emotion increases and as you radiate outward the intensity of the emotion decreases. More complex emotions are combinations of these eight primary emotions. Disgust combined with anger is experienced as contempt while disgust combined with sadness is experienced as remorse.

What Emotions are Similar to Disgust?

According to Plutchik’s emotion wheel, disgust is adjacent to, and therefore similar to the other negative emotions anger and sadness. However, unlike disgust, feelings of anger and sadness do not generally lead to nausea, or a strong desire to put distance between yourself and the offending object. Anger tends to prompt a desire to fight. Fear is similar to disgust in that it drives us to escape or avoid the fear-inducing object. However, fear keeps you away from something that might hurt you, while disgust keeps you away from something that might make you sick.

Is There an Opposite of Disgust?

Situated directly opposite to disgust on the emotion wheel is trust. Of Plutchik’s eight universal emotions, trust is the emotion that is considered most different from disgust.

According to Plutchik’s theory, complex emotions are generated when two or more of the primary emotions combine (Plutchik, 1991). It is theoretically possible for any combination of emotions to be felt at the same time, directed at the same object. However, the further the two emotions are from one another, the greater the sense of conflict felt from their combination. When you feel disgust and trust at the same time, and directed towards the same object, an uncomfortable sense of conflict will likely result.

You may have experienced this conflict between feelings of disgust and feelings of trust when you first heard the sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby. Years after his arrest, journalists and filmmakers continue to explore the downfall of this previously highly-trusted public figure. This continued fascination with Cosby's legacy may be partly an attempt to reconcile the conflicting emotions of disgust and trust that are now elicited by Cosby.

Expressions of Disgust

The Face of Disgust
The facial expressions most closely connected with disgust are related to vomiting or to otherwise removing something from the mouth or preventing something from entering the mouth. When you feel disgusted, your face may adopt any of the following features (Ekman et al., 1980):

• Lowered jaw
• Tongue sticking out
• Wrinkled nose
• Lips either pursed or in an inverted-u shape
• Protruding lower lip

Each of these facial features works to prevent a contaminant from entering the body via the nose or mouth.

Disgust Body Language
Similarly, body language associated with disgust also has roots in actions related to avoiding contact with disgusting objects. When you feel disgusted you may turn your head or whole body away from the source of the disgust. You may also cover your nose and mouth with your hand or hunch over. These behaviors are related to the nausea that accompanies feelings of disgust and may be present even when the offensive object is not itself nausea-inducing, for example when you hear about moral transgressions.

When you become disgusted you may also try to put distance between yourself and the disgusting situation or object by, for example, turning around or walking away. Failing that, you may attempt to stop paying attention to the disgusting object by closing or covering your eyes.

Words and Sounds of Disgust
Common vocal expressions of disgust in the English language include saying things like “yuck”, “ugh” or “ew”, vocalizations that linguists call “emotive interjections” and which express feelings, rather than describe them (Goddard, 2013).

Many vocal expressions of disgust are closely related to physical actions like retching or gagging or are produced with the facial features associated with disgust. Despite these strong associations between sounds of disgust and face and body movements, the sounds of disgust effectively communicate meaning on their own. A study found that 100 percent of German-speaking people were able to correctly identify the emotion indicated by the German word for yuck (Schroder, 2003).

Although yuck and eww have a broadly similar range of use, there are some differences. Yuck is more word-like than eww and can be used as a word in ways that eww cannot. For example, in the phrases “yuck factor” and “don’t yuck my yum”.

Many sounds of disgust cannot be easily transcribed, such as the sounds of retching and gagging. These sounds are typically said with a specific intonation, facial feature, or bodily actions. For example, you may shudder as you make a retching sound or you may lurch forward and grab your abdomen as you make a gagging sound.

Disgust Character in Pixar’s Inside Out

In the 2015 Pixar Movie Inside Out, the emotions joy, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust are personified as characters who live inside a preteen girl named Riley. These characters exhibit the features and characteristics of their namesake emotions. In the short clip below, the Disgust character is shown experiencing and expressing disgust.

Video: Meet Disgust

In this clip, Riley is confronted with a disgusting object (a squashed fly). She and her internal disgust emotion both demonstrate facial and body postures characteristic of people feeling disgusted. They both stick out their tongues, wrinkle their noses, and turn their lips down. The Disgust character also makes retching and gagging sounds, covers her mouth with her hand, fans herself, turns her body away, and eventually runs away from the disgusting situation altogether.

Self-Disgust

Self-disgust emerges when the basic emotion of disgust becomes directed inward, at the self (Clarke et al., 2019). Since disgust is a viscerally negative feeling that elicits revulsion and a strong desire to create distance between the self and the disgusting object, self-disgust may be extremely distressing and can contribute to psychological difficulties. Unlike self-hatred and other negative emotions directed at the self, self-disgust is characterized by a strong physical sense of revulsion and nausea.

How Does Self-Disgust Emerge?
If you evaluate some of your features or actions as disgusting, or if you come to associate your identity or your sense of yourself with an external stimulus that you find disgusting, you may develop feelings of self-disgust. These initial feelings of self-disgust may become strengthened if you spend a lot of time thinking about them or if other people reinforce your initial assessments. From here, the feelings of self-disgust may become fully incorporated into your self-identity and may guide your mental and psychological processing.

Self-disgust may emerge in adulthood as a result of trauma or abuse experienced during childhood. Self-disgust may also result from changes in how the self is experienced in adulthood. For example, experiencing incontinence in adulthood may create feelings of self-disgust (Rachman, 2004).
​
Self-disgust can be extremely distressing and may lead to self-isolation and social withdrawal as well as self-harm behaviors. Self-disgust is associated with several mental health conditions including depression, eating disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Articles Related to Disgust

Here are some more articles related to negative emotions like disgust:​

• ​Anger Issues: Definition, Management, and Tips to Control Anger​
• Sadness: Definition, Causes, & Related Emotions​
  
• Negative Emotions: List & 158 Examples (+ PDF)

Books Related to Disgust

Want to keep learning about the science of disgust? Check out these books:​​​

• The Moral Psychology of Disgust
• Disgust: The Gatekeeper Emotion​
  
• The Ancient Emotion of Disgust
• The Anatomy of Disgust
• Emotions of Menace and Enchantment: Disgust, Horror, Awe, and Fascination

Final Thoughts on Disgust

Disgust is a powerful emotion. Disgust keeps you from eating spoiled food and from interacting with objects that may contain disease-causing pathogens. However, this beneficial protective system can become co-opted to bad effect. Throughout history, bigots and tyrants have associated vermin, infestation, and disease with minority groups. This disgust-inducing imagery comes to contaminate the minority group. In recent history, groups that have received this treatment include racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, women, homosexuals, members of lower castes, and immigrants. When a person is labeled physically or morally disgusting, dehumanization and degradation become easier.

Disgust can be directed at physical objects, moral actions, social situations, groups of people, and even yourself. Awareness of this powerful emotion and all the ways that it impacts your life is the first step in understanding it and limiting its effects to the positive, protective effects that help keep you safe and healthy.

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References

• Clarke, A., Simpson, J., & Varese, F. (2019). A Systematic Review of the Clinical Utility of the Concept of Self-Disgust. Clinical psychology & psychotherapy, 26(1), 110-134.
• Curtis, V. (2011). Why Disgust Matters. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B Biological Sciences, 366(1583), 3478-3490.
• Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Ancoli, S. (1980). Facial Signs of Emotional Experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(6), 1125-1134.
• Goddard, C. (2013). Interjections and Emotion (with Special Reference to "Surprise" and "Disgust"). Emotion Review, 6(1), 53-63.
• Haidt, J., McCauley, C., & Rozin, P. (1994). Individual Differences in Sensitivity to Disgust: A Scale Sampling Seven Domains of Disgust Elicitors. Personality and Individual Differences, 16(5), 701-713.
• Helzer, E. G., & Pizarro, D. A. (2011). Dirty Liberals!: Reminders of Physical Cleanliness Influence Moral and Political Attitudes. Psychological Science, 22(4), 517-522. 
• Inbar, I., Pizarro, P. A., & Bloom, P. (2012). Disgusting Smells Cause Decreased Liking of Gay Men. Emotion, 12(1), 23-27.
• Lerner, J. S., Small, D. A., & , L., G. (2016). Heart Strings and Purse Strings: Carryover Effects of Emotions on Economic Decisions. Psychological Science, 15(5), 337-341.
• Plutchik, R. (1991). The Emotions. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.
• Olatunji, B. O., & Sawchuck, C. N. (2005). Disgust: Characteristic Features, Social Manifestations, and Clinical Implications. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 24(7), 932-962.
• Rachman, S. (2004). Fear of Contamination. Behavior Research and Therapy, 42(11), 1227-1255.
• Rozin, P., & Fallon, A. E. (1987). A Perspective on Disgust. Psychological Review, 94(1), 23-41.
• Rozin, P., Guillot, L., Fincher, K., Rozin, A., & Tsukayama, E. (2013). Glad to be Sad, and Other Examples of Benign Masochism. Judgment and Decision Making, 8(4), 439-447.
• Schroder, M. (2003). Experimental Study of Affect Bursts. Speech Communication, 40(1), 99-116.
• Tybur, J., Lieberman, D., Kurzban, R., & DeScioli, P. (2012). Disgust: Evolved Function and Structure. Psychological Review, 120(1).
• Tybur, J. M., Çınar, C., Karinen, A. K., & Perone, P. (2018). Why Do People Vary in Disgust?.​

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