1. Fear, Anxiety & Disgust
Class 22

2. Important Dates and Times
QUIZ Thursday, April 20
DIARY STUDY: Last day, April 20; Assignment starts
DIARY STUDY DUE DATE: April 27
FINAL: Tuesday, May 9; 11:45-2:45

3. Stigma: Where fear, anger, and humor intersect
Stigma—from “Stigmata”, a mark
Who are the stigmatized?
Those who violate social norms: Old, infirm, disfigured, disabled, social outcast, criminal, “the other”
Reactions to the stigmatized?
Fear, anger, fascination, disgust, interest, anxiety, derision

4. Why the Strong Reactions to the Stigmatized?
Learned : e.g., parents’ messages to children
Inborn : Part of evolutionary make-up
a. Strong attack weak in hierarchical species
b. Immediate fear and loathing to dead animals

5. Reactions of Chimps to the Dead and Disabled
Reactions to anesthetized chimps (Hebb & Thompson, 1954)
Reactions to paralyzed chimps (Goodall, 1971)
Emotional reactions?
Fear, anger, disgust, distain

6. Are responses to stigma always negative?
Compassion: Some chimps adopted polio victims
Fascination: Curious about people, who violate norms.
a. “Freak shows”
b. Tourists to East Village
Admiration:
a. Glamour of the rebel, bad boy/girl
b. Respect for courage—Helen Keller
Ambivalence: Emotions that go strongly in two directions at once—uncomfortable and powerful.

7. Stigmatized: Hyper-visible and invisible
Hyper-visible: Staring at the handicapped (Langer, et al. 1976)
Invisibility and being stigmatized?
Invisibility: People try to not see the stigmatized
I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. … it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. [People see] only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me.
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

9. Panic Attacks: Characteristics
* Place people is full-blown terror mode
* Powerful sense of foreboding, fear, dread
* Physiologically arousing: heart, breathing, etc.
* Mental readiness for danger: Planning escape

10. Panic Attacks: Causes
1. Biologically-oriented: spontaneous, arise from bio-chemical misfiring
2. Psychological: precipitating thoughts and events, especially separation-related: family strife, job-loss
3. Attack requires:
a. symptom sensitivity +
b. catastrophic cognitions +
c. preceding/concurrent negative events
4. Patients complain about meaning of panic
5. Panics are a vicious cycle: arousal --> cognitions --> arousal
How to manage panic attacks
1. Attacks last from minutes
2. Knowing this allows people to wait it out

11. Dog Distance and Dog Size Study
Fear and Social Resources
Dog Distance and Dog Size Study
1. Think of a:
Nice Dog
Mean Dog
Alone
With Friend
2. Draw dog on path

12. Dog Distance and Dog Size Results
Distance to Dog
Size of Dog

18. Disgust vs. Other Basic Emotions
Appears cross culturally X
Has characteristic facial expression
Defined by culture
Strong cognitive component
Based on source experience—Ingestion
Based on a particular body area—mouth

19. YUM! and YUCK! Are Culturally Influenced

20. Classes of Food Rejection
1. Distaste—based on sensory factors; smell, appearance, taste
2. Danger—Harmful, but could taste good, smell good.
3. Inappropriate—Not edible substance. Have minimal nutritional value, almost always inorganic.
4. Disgust—
a. Based the thoughts and images it creates.
b. Also presume they would taste bad. c. Have the capacity to contaminate
d. Usually are animals or animal products—feces # 1

21. Oral Nature of Disgust
Which is more disgusting:
A. ___ Cockroach in your mouth
B. ___ Cockroach in your stomach X
Disgust based on idea of oral incorporation into the self
Mouth point of entry to digestive tract
Mouth is emotionally highly-charged border between self/non-self
Things in mouth more disgusting than things that get past mouth

22. “Inside” vs. “Outside” and Disgust
Things become disgusting when they cross the self/non-self boundary: "Ego alien"--Allport
Waste
Saliva
Chewed food "bolus"
Exceptions:
tears; loved ones' "products"
Meaning of incorporation: You are what you eat.
Transmission of disgusting “essences”

23. A Tale of Two Tribes Tribe A hunts wild boar Tribe B hunts sea turtles
Which tribe is more:
Fierce
Steady
Noisy
Introverted
Tribe A
Tribe B
Tribe A
Tribe B

24. Disgust and Omnivore's Dilemma
Eats plants and animals
Advantage: Wider range of foods, flexibility in terms of opportunities
Disadvantage: More chances of ingesting harmful things
Role of Disgust?
Helps quickly develop internal, automatic
code for “good” vs. “bad” foods.

25. Classification of Disgusting Things
Disgust derives largely from things associated with animals
Body waste
Decayed animal matter
Carnivorous animals
Scavengers
Animals that look like humans
Pets
Almost all animals are considered disgusting food sources
Food prepared to disguise
animal nature

26. Why Animal Aversion? Rot easily Produce feces
Produce feces
Embody emotionally charged ideas
Closer to humans; evokes cannibalism taboo
Need to maintain boundary between selves and animals:
mortality fears

27. Psychosocial Aspects of Disgust
Psychological contamination, trace elements
Sympathetic magic: Fudge "reshaped"
Disgust generalizes, Pavlovian conditioning study

28. Disgust and Human Development
 Disgust not present in infancy
Freud: babies proud of waste
Experiments: Kids < 2 years highly disgust tolerant
Imitation dog poop 62%
Whole dried fish 58%
Grasshopper 31%
Human hair 08%
Task of preschool development--contamination sensitivity
Kids < 8 reject, but on basis of taste not contamination
Why 8+ to reject based on contamination?
Ability for abstract thinking: digestion as process, understand particulate-->infection, understand time

29. What are these people thinking?

30. Disgust as the Basis for Morals: I
Does ethical/moral sense arise from disgust?
What words used to describe immoral or unethical behavior?
Disgusting Nauseating
Revolting Left bad taste in my mouth
Turns my stomach
What words used to describe immoral or unethical people?
  Skunk Rat Louse Garbage Filth Pig

31. Disgust as Basis for Morals, II
* Common link:
-- Disgust occurs at prospect of bringing
something harmful into ones self.
-- Disgust serves to expel things that are dangerous
and that contaminate.
-- Moral revulsion serves to keep self, and social
network, “pure”, free of behaviors that corrupt
or that contaminate.

32. Why is Disgust Entertaining?