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We’ll open this chapter with a gambit frequently employed by disgust researchers during conference talks: disgust the audience to both grab their attention and ensure that they grasp the phenomenon at hand. So, clear your head, take a deep breath, and imagine standing in a crowded bus and yawning at the precise time that a stranger sneezes, spewing mucus and saliva into your open mouth. Further imagine biting into a sandwich and, after feeling a “crunch” between your teeth, looking down to half of a rat’s tail ensconced between the slices of bread, with the other half semi-chewed in your mouth. And finally, imagine that, while riding a roller coaster, the person sitting next to you experiences motion sickness and vomits on your chest. Hopefully we’ve aroused some disgust in you at this point, and we’ve made you think of the types of things that spark this feeling. Now try to explain why you would feel disgust in these situations. If you avoid appealing to the types of circular definitions that even some psychologists find irresistible (eg,“because it’s gross” or “because it makes me feel dirty”—for a discussion, see Tybur et al. 2013), you’ll probably arrive at some explanation grounded in your knowledge of the germ theory of disease. Relative to most of the other objects we come into contact with on a daily basis, saliva launched from someone else’s mouth, vermin that (literally) spread the plague, and vomit are each likely to contain infectious microbes. And disgust seems tailored to neutralizing contact with such things. The experience is associated with a facial expression that reduces the surface area of the eyes that could be exposed to pathogens …