Disgust as a hedonic experience
Nina Strohminger
Disgust is a negative emotion, and as such, it has often been assumed that its only function is
to generate negative evaluations (as demonstrated in the moral and gustatory domains).
However, there is some reason to expect that disgust can lead to positive evaluations in
certain contexts. Four studies were run to investigate how incidental disgust influences
judgments about humor and art. It was found that disgust makes people find dirty humor
funnier, and prefer abstract art. Disgust had no effect on liking clean humor, and a
detrimental effect on enjoyment of traditional art. The implications for how negative
emotional states are translated into hedonic experience are explored.