Abstract
Introduction
It has been suggested that disgust evolved as an emotion that motivates the rejection of rotten and poisonous food. Core disgust is experienced primarily in relation to the sense of taste, and bitterness is an indicator of potential food toxicity. The purpose of the present two studies was therefore to test whether the personality traits disgust proneness (DP, tendency to experience disgust) and disgust sensitivity (DS, tendency to expect harmful consequences of experiencing disgust) are associated with the intensity of perceived bitterness and disgust during the tasting of bitter herbs (e.g., dandelion, wormwood).
Method
Bitter and neutral compounds were presented as dried powder (study 1) or as teas (study 2) to a total of 170 women with a mean age of 23.5 years.
Results
In both experiments, women with high DS reported to experience more disgust when tasting the bitter compounds, but they did not differ in their bitterness ratings from women with low DS scores. DP did influence neither disgust nor bitterness ratings.
Conclusions
Trait disgust was not associated with the sensory perception of bitterness, but with its affective evaluation, the experienced disgust.
Implication
High DS might be considered a hypersensitive alarm system to aversive taste.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bartoshuk LM, Fast K, Snyder DJ (2005) Differences in our sensory world. Invalid comparisons with labeled scales. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 14(3):122–125
Bartoshuk LM, Duffy VB, Miller IJ (1994) PTC/PROP tasting: anatomy, psychophysics and sex effects. Physiol Behav 56(6):1165–1171
Bisset NG (ed) (1994) Herbal drugs and phytopharmaceuticals: A handbook for practice on a scientific basis. Medpharm Scientific Publication, Stuttgart
Chen B-B, Chang L (2012) Bitter struggle for survival: evolved bitterness embodiment of survival motivation. J Exp Soc Psychol 48(2):579–582
Council of Europe (ed) (2005) European Pharmacopoeia: 2815 bitterness value. Council of Europe, Strasbourg
Darwin CR (1965 [1872]) The expression of the emotions in man and animals. London: Penguin
Duffy VB, Hayes JE, Davidson AC, Kidd JR, Kidd KK, Bartoshuk LM (2010) Vegetable intake in college-aged adults is explained by oral sensory phenotypes and TAS2R38 genotype. Chemosens Percept 3:137–148
Ekman P, Friesen WV (1975) Unmasking the face (1 Auflage). Prentice Hall, Eaglewood Cliffs
Garcia-Burgos D, Zamora MC (2013) Facial affective reactions to bitter-tasting foods and body mass index in adults. Appetite 71:178–186
Garcia-Burgos D, Zamora MC (2015) Exploring the hedonic and incentive properties in preferences for bitter foods via self-reports, facial expressions and instrumental behaviours. Food Qual Prefer 39:73–81
Glendinning JI (1994) Is the bitter rejection response always adaptive? Physiol Behav 56(6):1217–1227
Hänsel R, Sticher O (eds) (2010) Pharmakognosie—Phytopharmazie (9 überarbeitete und aktualisierte Auflage). Springer Medizin Verlag, Heidelberg
Herbert C, Platte P, Wiemer J, Macht M, Blumenthal TD (2014) Supertaster super reactive: oral sensitivity for bitter taste modulates emotional approach and avoidance behavior in the affective startle paradigm. Physiol Behav 135:198–207
Herz RS (2011) PROP taste sensitivity is related to visceral but not moral disgust. Chemosens Percept 4(3):72–79
Macht M, Mueller J (2007) Increased negative emotional responses in PROP supertasters. Physiol Behav 90(2-3):466–472
Meyerhof W, Behrens M, Bufe B, Kuhn C (2005) Human bitter taste perception. Chem Senses 30(Supplement 1):i14
Reed DR, Tanaka T, McDaniel AH (2006) Diverse tastes: genetics of sweet and bitter perception. Physiol Behav 88(3):215–226
Rozin P, Fallon AE (1987) A perspective of disgust. Psychol Rev 94(1):23–41
Rozin P, Haidt J, McCauley CR (2008) Disgust. In: Lewis M, Haviland-Jones JM, Barrett LF (eds) Handbook of emotions, 3rd edn. Guilford Press, New York, pp 757–776
Schienle A, Dietmaier G, Ille R, Leutgeb V (2010) Eine Skala zur Erfassung der Ekelsensitivität (SEE) Zeitschrift für Klinische. Psychologie und Psychotherapie 39(2):80
Schienle A, Walter B, Stark R, Vaitl D (2002) Ein Fragebogen zur Erfassung der Ekelempfindlichkeit (FEE) Zeitschrift für Klinische. Psychologie und Psychotherapie 31(2):110–120
Wang X, Thomas SD, Zhang J (2004) Relaxation of selective constraint and loss of function in the evolution of human bitter taste receptor genes. Hum Mol Genet 13(21):2671–2678
Weiss RF, Fintelmann V (1999) Lehrbuch der Phytotherapie (9 Auflage). Hippokrates-Verlag, Stuttgart
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed consent
was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Schienle, A., Arendasy, M. & Schwab, D. Disgust Responses to Bitter Compounds: the Role of Disgust Sensitivity. Chem. Percept. 8, 167–173 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12078-015-9186-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12078-015-9186-7