Dirt, Disgust, and Disease: Is Hygiene in Our Genes?

@article{Curtis2001DirtDA,
  title={Dirt, Disgust, and Disease: Is Hygiene in Our Genes?},
  author={Val Curtis and Adam Biran},
  journal={Perspectives in Biology and Medicine},
  year={2001},
  volume={44},
  pages={17 - 31}
}
  • V. Curtis, A. Biran
  • Published 1 February 2001
  • Psychology
  • Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
Anthropologists have long puzzled over why certain objects and activities are avoided, reviled, or proscribed in many cultures. Numerous theories have been proposed, but as Reinhart (1990) suggests above, a full explanation remains elusive. Psychologists recently have begun to explore the nature of the revulsion that is occasioned by the sight of excreta, rotten food, slime, and bugs. They have described and categorized the emotion of disgust and have even proposed a location in the brain where… 
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513 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
34
Background Citations
244
Methods Citations
5
Results Citations
6

513 Citations

Dirt, disgust and disease: a natural history of hygiene
  • V. Curtis
  • Biology
    Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
  • 2007
TLDR
It is argued that hygiene behaviour and disgust predate culture and so cannot fully be explained as its product, and the history of ideas about disease thus is neither entirely socially constructed nor an “heroic progress” of scientists leading the ignorant into the light.
Disgust as a disease-avoidance mechanism.
TLDR
The authors find strong support for a disease-avoidance account of disgust and suggest that it offers a way to bridge the divide between concrete and ideational accounts of disgust.
Why disgust matters
  • V. Curtis
  • Psychology
    Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
  • 2011
TLDR
It is argued that a better understanding of disgust, using the new synthesis, offers practical lessons that can enhance human flourishing and provide a model system for the study of emotion.
The structure and function of pathogen disgust
TLDR
It is suggested that regularly occurring types of infectious disease problems have produced regularities in the domain structure of pathogen disgust and the implications for understanding the structure, function and measurement of motives such as disgust in humans and other animals are discussed.
Developing Disgust: Theory, Measurement, and Application
Disgust is a complex and uncharacteristic emotion. Despite being frequently classified as a “basic” emotion, disgust has a wide range of elicitors, many competing functional theories, and a…
Developing Disgust : Theory , Measurement , and Application
Disgust is a complex and uncharacteristic emotion. Despite being frequently classified as a “basic” emotion, disgust has a wide range of elicitors, many competing functional theories, and a…
Why do people vary in disgust?
TLDR
People vary in the degree to which they experience disgust toward—and, consequently, avoid—cues to pathogens, and researchers have suggested that variability reflects a general tendency to experience anxiety or emotional distress.
Disgusting bodies, disgusting religion: the biology of Tantra.
  • Thomas B. Ellis
  • Psychology
    Journal of the American Academy of Religion. American Academy of Religion
  • 2011
TLDR
It is suggested that hard-core Tantra is literally disgusting because it is literally maladaptive, and that Tantra may be a perfected religion.
Understanding disgust
TLDR
Cognitive neuroscientists have a unique opportunity to study how an evolutionarily ancient response rooted in the chemical senses has expanded into a uniquely human social cognitive domain; many interesting research avenues remain to be explored.
A natural history of hygiene.
  • V. Curtis
  • Medicine
    The Canadian journal of infectious diseases & medical microbiology = Journal canadien des maladies infectieuses et de la microbiologie medicale
  • 2007
TLDR
In unpacking the Pandora's box of hygiene, the author looks into its ancient evolutionary history and its more recent human history, and argues that disgust and hygiene behaviour came first, and that the rationales came later.
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