Speaker: Paul Rozin

Emeritus Professor of Psychology

University of Pennsylvania

BIO

Paul Rozin has been a member of the Psychology Department at the University of Pennsylvania for 59 years, where he is currently Emeritus Professor of Psychology. Over the last 35 years, the major focus of his research has been human food choice, considered from biological, psychological and anthropological perspectives. He has studied the cultural evolution of cuisine, the development of food aversions, the development of food preferences, family influences in preference development, body image, the acquisition of liking for chili pepper, chocolate craving, and attitudes to meat.

He has studied the emotion of disgust and related magical thinking, and how both can be barriers to public acceptance of new technologies or foods (e.g., recycled water, insects as food). He is also working on the meaning of food in different cultures.

Dr. Rozin was born in Brooklyn, New York. He earned a B.A. in 1956 from the University of Chicago and received a Ph.D. in both Biology and Psychology from Harvard in 1961. His thesis research was sponsored by Jean Mayer. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. He was an editor of the journal, Appetite, for ten years.

TALK DESCRIPTION

Disgust is a negative emotion whose origins are in the food system. The focus of disgust in the food domain is foods of animal origin. Disgust is so potent that if something disgusting merely touches a desirable food, it renders that food offensive. This is called “psychological contagion.” Since eating and cuisine represent positive events, one would think there would be little place for disgust in this domain. However, disgust is involved in two ways.

First, since the enjoyment of eating is compromised by disgust, the suppression of disgust is a part of civilized eating. In some cases, introduction of new types of nutritive, sustainable but disgusting foods, like insects, requires active suppression of disgusting features of the food, and suppression of the experience of disgust.

Second, in some cases, disgusting entities and the elicitation of disgust can become part of the pleasure of eating and other experiences. I call this “benign masochism.” In some conditions, disgust is amusing and is part of jokes. Most cuisines have some rotting foods that are generally disgusting, but come to be enjoyed because of these features such as stinky cheeses. So disgust, or its suppression, is a part of the normal, positive experience of eating.