Luo Jin found that what people hate is mainly what people produce: vomit, feces, urine, mucus and blood. From 65438 to 0955, Gordon allport, a famous American psychologist, put forward the "imagination experiment" of disgust, and proved his point of view through the imagination of the subjects in their heads. "First imagine swallowing your own saliva, or really swallowing a mouthful of saliva. Then imagine spitting this saliva into a cup and drinking it! These natural and' my' saliva immediately turned into strange and disgusting things. " Luo Jin did carry out this experiment. He asked the subjects to spit in the cup before drinking water. He found that allport's conclusion was correct. Even if the saliva was still in their mouths before 1 second, they would not drink any more. Luo Jin said that once these things we produce leave our bodies, we will find them disgusting. The formation of disgust is between 4 and 8 years old, and aversion to independence becomes a kind of emotion of people. Children won't eat food because they think it's not delicious, but they still don't know how to hate it. Luo Jin also requires children and adults to touch and taste chocolate in the form of dog feces. Children under the age of 4-7 don't realize how disgusting it is, and most adults refuse to do so. Similarly, if you put a sterilized grasshopper in milk or juice, children under 4 years old will not refuse to drink it.
Children and teenagers prefer disgusting things. Luo Jin reminds us that some novel shops do sell imitations of vomit, mucus and excrement, and most of them are little boys.
William miller, a legal expert, wrote in a book that children are not the only ones who are fascinated by disgusting things. "(disgusting things) ... have a kind of attraction and charm, so we are always willing to see the bloody scene of the accident and are unwilling to take our eyes off it ... horror movies also strongly attract us ... our own noses and excreta are dirty and disgusting things, (but we) ... are still curious and fascinated by them ... In fact, we often pay attention to our secretions, but we just don't want to admit it. The box office success of a vulgar film like this can't be entirely attributed to teenagers. Another important function of disgust is to keep us away from disgusting things. Obviously, not eating rotten food is good for us, and social aversion also keeps us away from unpleasant things. Miller said that disgust is a moral principle, which makes us not compromise on people or things we hate. Madonsha Nashapom, a legal expert, said: "Most societies educate people to avoid contact with people who have serious physical defects and look disgusting. "Unfortunately, this feeling can be very dangerous, because those who look unpopular will be vilified and people will not treat them as human beings, which will make them unfairly treated.
Nashabom believes that the basis of law should not be what everyone hates, but what people hate. "(disgust) ... this moral emotion is far more powerful than legal judgment and more reliable than disgust. Hatred contains a common standard. It does not regard criminals as parasites or non-human creatures outside our moral standards. This will cause controversy, but we will resolutely incorporate them into our moral standards and judge them within this scope. "
People's emotional state at the time of committing a crime may become one of the reference bases for mitigating their criminal circumstances. Aversion should not be taken into account. ... not liking each other or hating him is definitely not a reason for violence against him.
People who abuse others usually argue that they are animals (not cute pets), and sometimes they call each other disgusting inanimate things, such as garbage and dregs. I know that anger and hatred can be used as excuses to kill or even torture others, but they will not set up obstacles of disgust between themselves and others. It is generally believed that what can stop violence is the image or voice of the victims, not their screaming and bleeding. But this is not always the case, perhaps because their painful appearance makes people feel sick. Even though we didn't think the other person was disgusting at first, once we saw his blood and his swollen body twisted by injury or torture, it was often disgust, not attention.
Seeing other people's internal structures, especially when they are full of blood, will make us feel sick. (80% people are disgusted, and 20% people feel sad and painful, as if they feel the same way as the people in the film. This seems to be an instinct. However, if it is still strangers who bleed, but our relatives or friends, then our sense of disgust will be reduced. We will want to help each other alleviate this pain, not escape. The aversion to disease and physical pain can indeed prevent us from being infected, but at the same time, it also makes us ignore the sympathy and care for others, and sympathy and care are precisely the power that human beings gather together.
Sympathy and care (called empathy in psychology) do not belong to the category of emotions, they are our responses to others' emotions. In cognitive empathy, we are aware of the emotions of others; In emotional transfer, we personally experience the emotions of others; Empathy makes us want to help others solve problems, including their emotional problems. Cognitive empathy is a prerequisite for the other two kinds of empathy, but emotional empathy is not a prerequisite for sympathetic empathy. Classification situation
Interpersonal disgust Luo Jin distinguished two kinds of disgust, namely interpersonal disgust and basic disgust. He listed four situations that can cause interpersonal disgust (this is acquired): weirdness, illness, unfortunate experience and psychopathy. In our research, we ask college students to write down the most disgusting things they can imagine and human beings can experience. Someone mentioned Luo Jin's so-called oral aversion (such as forcing you to eat other people's vomit), but it only accounts for 1 1% of the total. The most chilling situation mentioned by most people (62%) is mental torture. For example, how American soldiers feel after seeing the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. Half of the mental disgust they mentioned was related to sexual perversion. For example, seeing someone having sex with a child. Finally, 18% people mentioned physiological reactions unrelated to food, such as seeing maggots' bodies. Our research shows that what adults can't stand most is interpersonal disgust, especially mental disgust, rather than the basic oral comprehensive reaction.
fundamental characteristics
The four manifestations of interpersonal aversion-weirdness, illness, unfortunate experience and psychopathy-can also be summarized into four themes. Except for disease, the other three themes have different interpretations in different cultures and backgrounds, but people generally have no objection to disease. Diseases such as serious defects, sores and purulent wounds are unpleasant in any culture.
Cultural reasons
Miller pointed out that people hate more and more things, not less, which is the same in every culture. People's emotional alarm database is open, not closed. Even when we are born, these databases and programs that guide us to respond to different emotions are not blank; The evolutionary history of mankind shows us how to react and the extent of the reaction. As Miller said, these innate things cannot be changed, but it is precisely because these databases and programs are open that we will learn new emotions and emotional incentives.
Tired of life
In addition to the four kinds of interpersonal disgust described by Luo Jin, there is another kind of disgust-I call it boredom-which is discovered through the accurate and quantitative study of emotional expression, aiming at the most important and rich relationship in social life-the relationship between husband and wife.
A surprising result is that the wife's dislike of her husband in the conversation trying to resolve their differences shows how long they will be separated in the next four years. Geithmann found that usually when the husband flinched and didn't want to understand his wife's emotions, the wife would show disgust. In layman's terms, she is fed up and angry. How vivid this statement about eating is!
Miller's point of view is interesting. We lowered the threshold of disgust in intimate relationships. The most typical example is: "... changing children's diapers, cleaning up children's vomit, taking care of patients and weak children ... as parents, they are willing to do anything." Clean up children's feces, although sometimes children's feces will rub on their hands and clothes; Sometimes I have to get wet by urine ... I'm not afraid of dirty things, which shows unconditional and noblest parental love. "
The same phenomenon can happen in intimate relationships. Let's take a look at Miller's statement: "When someone else's tongue lingers in your mouth, it can be said to be intimate, but it can also be said to be unpleasant aggression. ... sex actually crosses the line of mutual tolerance and disgust ... sex just crosses a line, a naked line. Besides long-term intimate caress and contact, there are other intimate ways to open your heart to each other. The two sides can share topics of mutual concern, pour out their doubts and concerns, frankly express their expectations and admit their shortcomings and deficiencies; We can clearly let each other know that he is not perfect, but a person with weaknesses and needs care ... We can define friends or close friends as people who can complain to each other, and we all know that such complaints are the privilege of close friends. If we are not in front of close friends, we will never do it out of self-esteem, because we are afraid of others' disgust ... mutual love allows us to safely expose our weaknesses to our friends. Without love, we will be ashamed of our actions and despised by others. "
Miller's unique view reveals to us that disgust has an unknown social function. The intimate relationship established by diluting disgust represents the trust between people. Accept what the other person can't talk about and make physical contact that others will feel sick-not just sex. Imagine what it would be like to clean up vomit for strangers instead of lovers-this is not only a manifestation of love, but also a better foundation for love.