The Cost of Acting

In this episode of the Decision Corner, Brooke speaks with Yoel Inbar - professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and expert in how the feeling of disgust influences human judgment and decision-making. Together they define what it really means to feel a sense of disgust and its evolutionary purpose as a means of preventing risk or harm (like stopping us from eating rotten food!). On the flip-side, we hear about the negative consequences of disgust and why it can lead to biased or flawed judgements.

Some of the things discussed include:

- What is disgust and what purpose does it serve from a biological or evolutionary perspective?

- Why justifying our disgust with moral reasoning, i.e. “It disgusts me so it must be wrong!” can be troublesome.

- Descriptive versus normative beliefs, and how disgust affects both in different ways.

- Does disgust affect people differently, and do some people get more ‘grossed out’ by things than others?

- Strategies to acknowledge our disgust, and allow us to question whether it’s serving us effectively or not.