"Ugh! That's disgusting!": Identification of the characteristics of foods underlying rejections based on disgust.
Previous research has demonstrated that individuals' beliefs about the disgusting properties of foods play a central role in predicting willingness to eat novel foods of either animal or non-animal origin (Martins & Pliner, in press). The present study aimed to identify what characteristics of foods make individuals perceive them as disgusting. In this study, participants read a set of scenarios designed to depict potentially disgusting foods; participants in Sample 1 rated the perceived disgustingness of the foods while participants in Sample 2 rated the foods on a variety of attributes relevant to theoretical conceptions of disgust. Multidimensional scaling revealed two dimensions, aversive textural properties of the foods and reminders of livingness/animalness, that accounted for most of the variability in ratings of perceived disgustingness of the foods depicted in the scenarios. Implications for our current conceptualization of disgust are examined.
Martins
Yolanda
Y
School of Psychology, Flinders University of South Australia, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia. yolanda.martins@flinders.edu.au
Pliner
Patricia
P
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D002755:Choice Behavior; D004435:Eating / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005502:Food / Q000145:classification; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008460:Meat; D013649:Taste / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception