All the effects are caused by the same basic mechanism, but the details differ from person to person. I am not sure whether the differences are because of the differences between people, or differences between the experiences and associations peculiar to each.

As far as I can tell, all the effects come down to avoidance of harmful effects, and in this type of aversion, the effects have to do with gross physical damage, such as when teeth grind on sand, or broken bones grind on each other, or fingernails grind and split on gritty materials. It does you no good at all to bite on hard grit, and any animal that does so wantonly is likely to experience a loss of dental function early enough to affect his reproductive prospects. It might well affect his ability to eat, or the frequency of abscesses from infection through exposed dental pulps, but all are bad, and understandably we have been selected for experiencing them as bad. Similarly, anything that grinds our bones, or threatens to do so, especially if there is a fracture, is to be avoided. Correspondingly we hate such grinding, whether the dull grinding of knife scraping, or the squeak of chalk or polystyrene, or the crushing of sand. Biting on wool or cotton wool or paper tells us that we are not about to enjoy this fibrous thing, and that we had better find a less fibrous root or nutshell before we harm our teeth. Tearing things like some kinds of paper or matted fibre can make a sound that subjectively catches some people right behind the eyeballs or inside their skulls, and it goes with the sensation of the material between their fingers.

You might object that such aversion must be the result of early experience, because we are unlikely to have a “gene for disliking tearing cotton wool” or a “gene for disliking rubbing polystyrene together” and I do not deny that experience might well play a role. However, one gets other examples of aversions that definitely seem innate, for instance, some people have a lifelong fear of snakes, while others fear spiders in a very visceral way, without the slightest hint of a personal bad experience. These fears probably are variations on the same inner theme, and that is how I see it with avoiding the types of stimuli you mention.

So, for my money, the dominant factor seems likely to be nature rather than nurture in this matter.

Cheers,

Jon