In Dr. Beck’s Spotlight he discussed how the psychology of disgust affects our emotional reactions to moral violations we deem to be “purity violations.” This response is worrisome when the disgust reaction becomes attached to people, when we see persons as “disgusting,” “creepy,” “icky,” or “revolting.”
To learn more about the psychology of disgust and its relation to moral and social life, check out the following:
- Why We Get Disgusted. Time Magazine (2007).
- The Mystery of Disgust. Psychology Today (2009).
- Beck, R. Spiritual Pollution: The dilemma of sociomoral disgust and the ethic of love. Journal of Psychology and Theology (2006).
- Beck, R. Feeling Queasy about the Incarnation: Terror Management Theory, death, and the body of Jesus. Journal of Psychology and Theology (2009).
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
Researchers have noted how disgust properties become attached to people and despised groups. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum describes these social forms of disgust:
Throughout history, certain disgust properties–sliminess, bad smell, stickiness, decay, foulness–have repeatedly and monotonously been associated with, indeed, projected onto, groups by reference to whom privileged groups seek to define their superior human status.
1. Read Acts 10. How is social disgust implicated in this story? How was the psychology of disgust (i.e., “unclean”) hampering the mission of the church to take the gospel “into all the world”?
2. Examine world history through the perspective of disgust. Find examples where disgust properties were attributed to despised groups to justify acts of injustice.
3. Think about the current social and political debates in America today. Are the categories of disgust still applied to people and groups? Cite examples.
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