That's Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion

by Rachel Herz PhD

Overview

"A lively look at all things revolting." —New York Times Book Review

Why do we watch horror movies? What is the best way to persuade someone to quit smoking? And what on earth is the appeal of competitive eating? In this lively, colorful book, Rachel Herz answers these questions and more, shedding light on an incredible range of human traits—from food preferences and sexual attraction to moral codes and political ideology—by examining them through the lens of a fascinating subject: disgust. Combining lucid scientific explanations and fascinating research with a healthy dose of humor, That’s Disgusting illuminates issues that are central to our lives: love, hate, fear, empathy, prejudice, humor, and happiness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393344165
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/18/2013
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Rachel Herz is a neuroscientist specializing in perception and emotion. She teaches at Brown University and Boston College, and is a professional consultant. The author of The Scent of Desire and That’s Disgusting, she lives in Rhode Island.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

1 Let's Eat 1

2 A Snapshot of Disgust 28

3 Disgust on the Brain 58

4 Germ Warfare 77

5 Disgust Is Other People 102

6 Horror Show 132

7 Lust and Disgust 156

8 Law and Order 184

9 Disgust Lessons 210

Acknowledgments 235

Notes 237

Illustration Credits 263

Index 265

Editorial Reviews

"Leaves you contemplating how your own sense of disgust may be manipulated, or even overcome."

New Scientist

"In her lively tour of vileness, Herz argues that disgust is in the mind of the beholder."

Nature

"In this smart and engaging book, Rachel Herz tells the story of disgust. She shows how it permeates everything that matters. It determines what we eat and who we talk to and who we sleep with. It infuses our law and our politics, and can, sometimes, be a source of great pleasure. Disgust is, as Herz explains, the truest mirror of human nature. This is a fascinating book on a disturbing but important topic."

Paul Bloom

"Should be required reading."

Becky Krystal

"In her lively tour of vileness, Herz argues that disgust is in the mind of the beholder."

Nature Lib

…a lively look at all things revolting…[Herz] manages…to be vivid and true to her subject without getting so revolting that her readers react the way we react to anything that disgusts us, which is by trying to get as far away as possible.
—The New York Times Book Review

Robin Marantz Henig

"...[Herz] manages it quite admirably: to be vivid and true to her subject without getting so revolting that her readers react the way we react to anything that disgusts us, which is by trying to get as far away as possible."

New York Times Book Review - Robin Marantz Henig

An expert on smell, Herz (psychiatry, Brown Univ.; The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic Sense of Smell) leads a tour of off-putting stimuli that reach us mainly through sight, smell, touch, and taste. Her focus is the last emotion to develop of the universal six: fear, anger, sadness, happiness, surprise, and disgust. Feeling disgust and recognizing it in others helps us avoid accidents, contamination, and other dangers. Sometimes it misfires, e.g., we react more to harmless spiders than to mosquitoes and flies. The brain locus of disgust is now known, as is the absence of this normal reaction in obsessive compulsives, psychopaths, and those with the gene for Huntington's disease. Herz reports many examples of crime, politics, and policy but not the grossness of war and resultant post-traumatic stress disorder. VERDICT Not for the squeamish. A lively, quotable survey of how a specific emotion works for and against our benefit. Accessible to general readers, but the book could be better organized and more clearly written.—E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, DC

Library Journal

Herz (Psychology/Brown Univ.; The Scent of Desire, 2007) examines the strange world of disgust and discovers that, to a large extent, it's all in the mind of the beholder. "The emotion of disgust is universal," writes the author, "but it is not innate; disgust has to be learned and is subject to a myriad of influences." If the most elemental purpose of disgust is to engender an avoidance of rotten and toxic food, it mostly arises from our cultural heritage and those pockets of the brain that remind us of our mortality and animalistic selves. Herz closely hews to current research on disgust, but she also salts the narrative with anecdotal material and intriguing vignettes, which gives the book a high entertainment factor as she wades through the scientific matter. The author tackles aspects of both physical and moral disgust and convincingly finds in them a protective impulse--"disgust is a type of fear--a special type of fear that evolved to help us evade a slow and uncertain death by disease." Moral disgust is a more slippery character, with all the illogical reasons we deploy to find something immoral, though Herz suggests that moral repulsion isn't only a threat: "More abstractly, but just as ominous, being around the badness of immoral people might sully your inner, spiritual self or soul." She touches down on food and lust, self-empathy and how disgust piques our curiosity of that ultimate mystery, death. Finally, she notes that disgust is a luxury, an embarrassment of our riches: When survival is at stake, we will eat anything, mate with anyone and enlist anyone's support. "The greatest pleasures are only narrowly separated from disgust," said Cicero. In this multifaceted book, Herz expertly walks that tightrope.

Kirkus Reviews