What physiologically happens when we get “grossed out”?
In: Biology
Looking pretty quiet in here, so I’ll kick us off.
The gross-out response is, more accurately, a mix of disgust and revulsion. These are (biologically) reactions which attempt to keep us away from bad things.
Poop grosses us out because poop is bad. Bacteria. No touch.
Blood and guts gross us our because bad. Injury. Hurty no good inside bits on outside. Wrong.
So on and so forth for the rest; vomit, bad food, various types of sludge and bad smelling things. Your body gives you a visceral “no don’t” reaction to encourage you not to interact with the substance.
There are two interesting quirks to this.
The first is that sometimes our bodies malfunction a bit and misidentify things.
Sometimes you might find something gross when it’s completely innocuous. This is usually because somewhere in your brain, you’ve associated it with something actually gross, or it shares enough traits with a gross thing that it *reminds* you of the gross thing strongly enough to kick off the reaction.
The second interesting quirk is nausea. Something being gross enough to make you physically sick.
Vomiting is your body’s blunt, default attempt to purge you of things that you should not have eaten. If you are exposed to something gross enough, and to a strong enough degree, your body sometimes kicks it up to the next level and attempts to purge the substance from you. Despite the fact that you may not have ingested it.
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