YUCK, gross! But what kind of gross, exactly? The emotion we call “disgust” actually encompasses several different kinds of revulsion, each with their own evolutionary history and pattern of brain activity.
Most animals with the ability to select their foods are likely to have evolved something like disgust toward putrid morsels, so minimising their contact with pathogens. But with our relatively sophisticated social behaviour, humans may have co-opted this disgust mechanism to avoid sexual encounters with unsuitable mates such as siblings, and later added a third form of disgust directed at moral transgressions such as theft.
“Humans may have co-opted the disgust mechanism to avoid having…
