Why do people find feces disgusting?
Unlike fear or anger, disgust is an emotion that until recent years has been largely neglected by neuroscience. One researcher, Mary Phillips, has described it as “the forgotten emotion of psychiatry.” Yet disgust appears to be universal. Darwin described examples of it from Abyssinia to Greenland, in people responding to bad tastes, bad odors, and—in his case—the sight of his food “being touched by a naked savage.” For Darwin, disgust was, quite literally, something offensive to the taste. For Valerie Curtis, disgust is an emotion crucial to human survival. Curtis studies diarrheal diseases—the number two killer of children in the world today—and is keen to understand how disgust helps motivate people to maintain good hygiene. (She uses her plastic feces as a prop in talks on the topic.) In a recent global survey, Curtis asked people in five places—India, the Netherlands, Britain, the West African country of Burkina Faso, and Athens International Airport—to describe what disgusts them
