One function of disgust is to act as a pathogen-avoidance system preventing contact with substances harbouring disease-causing organisms. Avoiding pathogens, however, requires systems for their detection. Whereas previous research on disgust has focused on visual and olfactory detection cues, one largely overlooked modality is touch. Here we examine whether tactile cues play a role in pathogen detection and activate the disgust response. Participants briefly touched and then rated stimuli varying along dimensions predicted to correlate with pathogen presence: moisture, temperature, and consistency. Results show that participants rated wet stimuli and stimuli resembling biological consistencies as more disgusting than dry stimuli and stimuli resembling inanimate consistencies, respectively. No main effect for temperature was found. We report on predicted interactions, the relationship between disgust ratings and perceived infection risk, and individual differences. Taken together, these data suggest that touch is an important modality providing information for disgust-related processes.

Background-Experimental and epidemiologic studies suggest that soy may promote weight loss.

Two experiments examined participants’ responses to simulated news reports of terrorist attacks. Participants were told that a nondemocratic nation had sponsored strikes on military and cultural or educational sites in the United States. Participants in both experiments reacted more conflictually to terrorist attacks on military sites than to those on cultural or educational sites. Their conflictual responses on a thermometer scale escalated after repeated attacks. When tested in 2002 and 2004, 1 and 3 years after the real World Trade Center attacks, participants’ reactions were more conflictual than those of participants examined before September 11, 2001. Furthermore, current participants’ fear and anger increased, and forgiveness decreased, over repeated simulated attacks. Participants lower in masculinity showed more fear and less anger than did those higher in masculinity. This study shows that terrorist attacks produce more than simple terror.

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