From U Pennsylvania: The domains of disgust and their origins: contrasting biological and cultural evolutionary accounts

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23773551

Trends Cogn Sci. 2013 Jun 15. pii: S1364-6613(13)00119-8. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2013.06.001. [Epub ahead of print]

The domains of disgust and their origins: contrasting biological and cultural evolutionary accounts.

Rozin P, Haidt J.

Source

University of Pennsylvania, Department of Psychology, 3720 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6241, USA. Electronic address: rozin@psych.upenn.edu.

Abstract

A recent paper by Tybur and colleagues presents a theory of the evolved functions of disgust based on biological evolution. This work furthers our understanding of disgust and is the first to detail the computational mechanisms involved in detecting and evaluating disgust-related risks. However, because this approach ignores the powerful role of cultural evolution, its ability to encompass the wide and culturally variable range of disgust is limited.