Captivated and Grossed Out: An Examination of Processing Core and Sociomoral Disgusts in Entertainment Media

While disgust repels and offends us, it has functionally evolved over time to compel our attentionboth to core disgusts (i.e., blood, guts, body products) and sociomoral violations (i.e., injustices, brutality, racism)making it a quality of many entertainment messages that may keep audiences engrossed and engaged. An experiment exposed participants to two types of core disgusts and sociomoral disgusts in TV/film messages and collected self-report emotional responses, psychophysiological indicators of dynamic emotional and cognitive processing, and recognition memory for content. Results demonstrate that no two disgusts are alike: Sociomoral disgusts captivate our attention and elicit a slower, more thoughtful response pattern than core disgusts, and the nature of the core disgust elicits different responses as well