🧠 Main Idea: Curtis, Aunger, and Rabie (2004) hypothesized that disgust developed as an evolutionary protection against diseases.

✨ Fun Analogy: Think of disgust as your body's natural "yuck" alarm system. Just like Spiderman's spidey senses tingling when danger is near, your disgust reflex kicks in to keep you away from icky, potentially harmful things.

• Disease-Salient Stimulus: You should feel a bigger "yuck" with a disease-relevant trigger compared to a less relevant one.
  • 🌍 Real World Example: Finding raw meat more disgusting than a toy meat.
• Cultural Universality: This "yuck" sense should be somewhat similar globally, like how love for pizza is nearly universal.
• Stronger in Females: Moms-to-be or potential moms would likely have a heightened "yuck" sense to protect their future babies.
  • 🌍 Real World Example: Ever noticed some women (especially moms) being extra careful about cleanliness?
• Age-Based Decline: As we age and the chances of having more offspring decrease, the "yuck" sense might also dwindle.
  • 🌍 Real World Example: Grandma doesn't mind getting dirty while gardening as much as she might have in her 20s.
• Stranger Danger: Disgust should be stronger with strangers than family. Strangers might bring new germs.
  • 🌍 Real World Example: Sharing a drink with a sibling vs. hesitating to do the same with a stranger at a party.

A Twist! If even ONE of these conditions wasn't met, our evolutionary explanation could be thrown out the window. It's like trying to build IKEA furniture – if even one screw doesn't fit, your new desk might wobble!

• Platform: BBC Science website survey (big shout-out to the internet!)
• Participants: Initially 77,000 (imagine a huge stadium filled with people!) from 165 countries. However, after some cleanup (like removing those who watched a related BBC documentary), around 40,000 were considered.
• Task: After some basic questions, participants rated photos on a disgust scale. Some photos were specifically designed to be more disease-relevant. Imagine rating a photo of a clean plate vs. a plate with suspicious green goo.