The Psychodynamics of Disgust

The disgust reaction derives from the anal stage of psychosexual development as a mechanism of reaction formation and is subsequently utilized by the ego as a means of countering libidinal fixational drives. In addressing the general nature of the disgust reaction, as well as the specificity of disgust to certain activities (as relating to fixation in those areas), it was hypothesized (a) that disgust in a specific area would correlate negatively with that type of fixation, and (b) that disgustedness as a trait would correlate with the general anal-compulsive character typology. High intercorrelations found between the disgust reactions (regardless of content) rendered it impossible to test the hypothesis a, but hypothesis b was supported. The results confirm the potential of anality in the verification of psychoanalytic theory.