The Allure of the Disgusting with Dr. Thomas Armstrong

Multiple reality TV shows like “Fear Factor” and “Survivor” have become enduring franchises based on a simple premise: Disgusting participants and audience alike by subjecting participants to challenges involving unusual foods, or slimy, and creepy crawly creatures. Despite their revulsive nature, millions of people tune in week after week. Moreover, for some people, “gross” things are not only appealing but fascinating, and can even become an object of desire. In addition, for humans, disgust is such an important, organizing emotion that some prominent researchers have proposed it underlies our sense of morality.

To help us answer what is so intensely compelling about the repulsive, and give us insight into the role of disgust in human behavior, we have invited Dr. Thomas Armstrong to Psychodrama. Tom is an associate professor of psychology at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. He is the director of the Palouse Emotion and Experimental Psychopathology (PEEP) Laboratory [http://www.peep-lab.org/]. He completed his PhD at Vanderbilt University in Clinical Psychology, and his research focuses on improving the measurement and treatment of disgust in anxiety-related disorders, and more recently, sexual dysfunctions. Professor Armstrong is also interested in making eye tracking methodology more accessible, and he recently co-created an online alternative to eye tracking: MouseView.js [https://mouseview-docs.netlify.app/]. 

We had a lot of fun and learned a lot in our free ranging discussion with Tom about the things we find disgusting (frogs for Katie, and very little for Leo), and what these individual differences may mean for various aspects of life. Yet another episode in which we surely lost more potential endorsements. Nutella, we hardly knew ye. 

LISTENER WARNING: As may be expected, the episode discusses explicitly topics related to disgusting stimuli and ranges from phobic stimuli (like the feared tree frogs and octopus!) to the taboo incest and very unusual paraphilias.  Listener discretion is very much advised. Enjoy!