Disgust as an emotion

[Anonymous]

This is an intellectual question.... One of my children seems to be almost completely lacking in any sense of disgust. Any kind of weird insects, animals, creepy crawlies, rodents, are a wonder to this child. Also roadkill, dead animals, blood, maggots, are all interesting curiosities and draw my child in like a moth to a flame. It's also tied to an intense love of all natural things -plants, animals, rocks, fungi, but a general distaste for humans. This child also seems to be lacking in basic fear - of the dark, of bears/wolves/coyotes, of being left alone, but interestingly has a fear of cute things, like babies and toddlers, and dolls. Has been this way since being verbal.

It just makes me wonder...What does this mean? How does it correlate with other things? Like intelligence, morality, personality, sociability? My child is a highly intelligent, gifted, out of the box thinker who struggles a bit with unfamiliar humans.

[Anonymous]

I’m glad this has been explained to all and sundry as an intellectual question.

[Anonymous]

Those kinds of fear and disgust are evolutionary tools that help us avoid things that might harm us, like rotten meat, harmful insects, dangerous animals, or poisonous plants. If your child truly doesn’t have those base-level, gut senses, I’d be careful to at least teach them the intellectual and behavioral skills to avoid danger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those kinds of fear and disgust are evolutionary tools that help us avoid things that might harm us, like rotten meat, harmful insects, dangerous animals, or poisonous plants. If your child truly doesn’t have those base-level, gut senses, I’d be careful to at least teach them the intellectual and behavioral skills to avoid danger.

In some ways this child is better equipped to survive in the wild than anyone. Can identify poisonous vs edible plants and berries, identify poisonous snakes/bugs vs harmless ones, is able to ignore hunger signals, is able to eat things that most kids find disgusting (like bugs), can identify animal tracks, and probably would be able to skin and eat an animal if needed.

[Anonymous]

How old is your kid, OP? My kid's disgust reflect didn't really get going until 3/4. That's when we started hearing more about how certain foods were "gross" or certain places "looked scary." I think before that, she was just more fully trusting that we would take care of any potential hazards and would never give her food that tasted bad or take her somewhere dangerous. But as she entered preschool she became more discerning, I think because she was having to navigate the world on her own sometimes, and this led her to express disgust more frequently. It makes sense -- if your parents are making all your choices for you, you don't really need a disgust reflex. But once you have to decide things for yourself, like whether to go down the big slide on the playground or to try the unfamiliar snack offering, you might be more likely to lean into a disgust reaction if something doesn't feel right.

Of course, if your kid is 7 or 8 and still has no disgust reaction to anyone, I might wonder if it reflects some neuro-divergence. It generally is fairly instinctual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How old is your kid, OP? My kid's disgust reflect didn't really get going until 3/4. That's when we started hearing more about how certain foods were "gross" or certain places "looked scary." I think before that, she was just more fully trusting that we would take care of any potential hazards and would never give her food that tasted bad or take her somewhere dangerous. But as she entered preschool she became more discerning, I think because she was having to navigate the world on her own sometimes, and this led her to express disgust more frequently. It makes sense -- if your parents are making all your choices for you, you don't really need a disgust reflex. But once you have to decide things for yourself, like whether to go down the big slide on the playground or to try the unfamiliar snack offering, you might be more likely to lean into a disgust reaction if something doesn't feel right.

Of course, if your kid is 7 or 8 and still has no disgust reaction to anyone, I might wonder if it reflects some neuro-divergence. It generally is fairly instinctual.

My child is 10! Interesting you bring up food and developmental changes, my child pretty much ate anything you put in front of them until age 4/5. Then became ridiculously picky and discerning at age 5-8, and now has grown out of that picky stage.

[Anonymous]

***DISCLAIMER: I'M NOT SAYING YOUR KID IS A PSYCHOPATH, I'M USING THIS TO SHOW HOW BRAINS CAN BE DIFFERENT***

So there are a lot of people out there that commit heinous crimes. What makes one a psychopath and the other not? Well psychopath brains truly are different. Show both of the individuals horrific pictures, they can both potentially sit there stone faced looking unmoved. Yet the non-psychopath individual will still see increased brain activity, accelerated heart rate, sweating etc. The psychopath's brain is truly unmoved, they can look at something horrific and feel absolutely nothing.

Brains can work in all sorts of ways. It seems like your kid's has very low reactivity to "gross" things. There are lots of people like this (all the people that work with "gross" things)

I doubt its correlated with intelligence or anything else, its just how reactive one certain aspect of their brain is to a certain type of stimuli

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old is your kid, OP? My kid's disgust reflect didn't really get going until 3/4. That's when we started hearing more about how certain foods were "gross" or certain places "looked scary." I think before that, she was just more fully trusting that we would take care of any potential hazards and would never give her food that tasted bad or take her somewhere dangerous. But as she entered preschool she became more discerning, I think because she was having to navigate the world on her own sometimes, and this led her to express disgust more frequently. It makes sense -- if your parents are making all your choices for you, you don't really need a disgust reflex. But once you have to decide things for yourself, like whether to go down the big slide on the playground or to try the unfamiliar snack offering, you might be more likely to lean into a disgust reaction if something doesn't feel right.

Of course, if your kid is 7 or 8 and still has no disgust reaction to anyone, I might wonder if it reflects some neuro-divergence. It generally is fairly instinctual.

My child is 10! Interesting you bring up food and developmental changes, my child pretty much ate anything you put in front of them until age 4/5. Then became ridiculously picky and discerning at age 5-8, and now has grown out of that picky stage.

Ah, well that pickiness was a form of disgust.

Perhaps your child just has a very good poker face. Some people have more expressive faces than others. My child doesn't make disgusted faces but will calmly say to me "Mommy, your food smells really bad. Can you take your plate somewhere else so I don't have to smell it while I eat?" It's hard to argue with!

[Anonymous]

I think this is a developmental thing (though PP is right and all brains are different). I loved spiders until I was about 18 and now I freak out about them.

[Anonymous]

It is possible is curious and not turned off by certain things. My DD (I have two boys and a girl) is the one into snakes and rodents, although can't stand to be outside because of bugs. Allow your child to be "weird" in his/her own kind of way, and acknowledge it may just be a different repsonse to the world.

[Anonymous]

Maybe he's a future veterinarian! My uncle was that way. Raised falcons in Alaska!

[Anonymous]

OP what is your concern, specifically?

Are you worried your child is a sociopath, neurodivergent, or something else? Not judging, just...that has to be your concern, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP what is your concern, specifically?

Are you worried your child is a sociopath, neurodivergent, or something else? Not judging, just...that has to be your concern, right?

I'm not concerned, I'm just curious, as I think it's so interesting. My husband is similar in lack of disgust, but I think our child has him beat.

PPs have brought up that disgust is an evolutionary trait meant to protect us. And yet, I think my child and husband would probably do a lot better in the wild than most other people.

And then the fact that I very much feel disgust, as do my other children. I practically faint at the sight of blood, and cannot stare at roadkill that has entrails spread all over the road without feeling sick to my stomach. So maybe it is a genetic thing - that my husband has more genetic material passed down from people who lived in the woods and hunted and gathered, and I have more genetic material from people who lived in farming villages.

I have no idea. I'm merely offering it up as an interesting concept and variation in humans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:***DISCLAIMER: I'M NOT SAYING YOUR KID IS A PSYCHOPATH, I'M USING THIS TO SHOW HOW BRAINS CAN BE DIFFERENT***

So there are a lot of people out there that commit heinous crimes. What makes one a psychopath and the other not? Well psychopath brains truly are different. Show both of the individuals horrific pictures, they can both potentially sit there stone faced looking unmoved. Yet the non-psychopath individual will still see increased brain activity, accelerated heart rate, sweating etc. The psychopath's brain is truly unmoved, they can look at something horrific and feel absolutely nothing.

Brains can work in all sorts of ways. It seems like your kid's has very low reactivity to "gross" things. There are lots of people like this (all the people that work with "gross" things)

I doubt its correlated with intelligence or anything else, its just how reactive one certain aspect of their brain is to a certain type of stimuli

I had to laugh at your disclaimer... Such a great opener. "I'm not saying your kid is a psychopath...." LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old is your kid, OP? My kid's disgust reflect didn't really get going until 3/4. That's when we started hearing more about how certain foods were "gross" or certain places "looked scary." I think before that, she was just more fully trusting that we would take care of any potential hazards and would never give her food that tasted bad or take her somewhere dangerous. But as she entered preschool she became more discerning, I think because she was having to navigate the world on her own sometimes, and this led her to express disgust more frequently. It makes sense -- if your parents are making all your choices for you, you don't really need a disgust reflex. But once you have to decide things for yourself, like whether to go down the big slide on the playground or to try the unfamiliar snack offering, you might be more likely to lean into a disgust reaction if something doesn't feel right.

Of course, if your kid is 7 or 8 and still has no disgust reaction to anyone, I might wonder if it reflects some neuro-divergence. It generally is fairly instinctual.

My child is 10! Interesting you bring up food and developmental changes, my child pretty much ate anything you put in front of them until age 4/5. Then became ridiculously picky and discerning at age 5-8, and now has grown out of that picky stage.

Let me save you a few thousand dollars. Your child has high functioning autism.
No need for medication or therapy. Just a subtype like any other.