The Child's Conception of Food: The Development of Food Rejections with Special Reference to Disgust and Contamination Sensitivity

TLDR

Adults consider disgusting substances contaminants that can render liked foods inedible even in trace amounts, yet young children lack the physical chemistry knowledge to exhibit a contamination response. The authors used structured interviews with 3.5‑12‑year‑old children and their mothers to trace the emergence of four psychological categories of food rejection. The study revealed a developmental sequence of food rejection: first sensory taste, then danger, followed by ideational rejection that splits into disgust and inappropriate, with contamination sensitivity appearing gradually across the age range.

Abstract

Structured interviews with 3.5-12-year-old children and their mothers were directed at documenting the development of 4 psychological categories of food rejection. The first to appear is rejection based purely on sensory characteristics, usually taste ( distastes ). Rejection based purely on anticipated harm following ingestion appears next (danger). Finally, the oldest children and adults show rejection based on the idea of what something is or where it comes from. This ideational type of rejection further differentiates into affectively laden rejections of substances that become offensive ( disgusts ) and more neutral rejections of substances as simply not food (inappropriate). A critical psychological feature of disgusting substances in adults is that they are "contaminants": they render an otherwise liked food inedible if present even in trace amounts, or if associated with a liked food. Contamination sensitivity is not present in the younger subjects, and appears gradually in the age range studied. Young children are unaware of the physical chemistry of solutions (e.g., diffusion and its lack of reversibility) and therefore do not show a "contamination response."