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Infection threat shapes our social instincts. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2021; 75:47. [PMID: 33583997 PMCID: PMC7873116 DOI: 10.1007/s00265-021-02975-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2020] [Revised: 01/05/2021] [Accepted: 01/11/2021] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
We social animals must balance the need to avoid infections with the need to interact with conspecifics. To that end we have evolved, alongside our physiological immune system, a suite of behaviors devised to deal with potentially contagious individuals. Focusing mostly on humans, the current review describes the design and biological innards of this behavioral immune system, laying out how infection threat shapes sociality and sociality shapes infection threat. The paper shows how the danger of contagion is detected and posted to the brain; how it affects individuals’ mate choice and sex life; why it strengthens ties within groups but severs those between them, leading to hostility toward anyone who looks, smells, or behaves unusually; and how it permeates the foundation of our moral and political views. This system was already in place when agriculture and animal domestication set off a massive increase in our population density, personal connections, and interaction with other species, amplifying enormously the spread of disease. Alas, pandemics such as COVID-19 not only are a disaster for public health, but, by rousing millions of behavioral immune systems, could prove a threat to harmonious cohabitation too.
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Shook NJ, Oosterhoff B. Testing the effects of pathogen threat and sexual strategies on political ideology. Politics Life Sci 2020; 39:187-199. [PMID: 33231036 DOI: 10.1017/pls.2020.19] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Disgust has been consistently associated with greater political conservatism. Two explanations have been proposed for this link. According to a pathogen threat model, disgust serves a pathogen-avoidance function, encouraging more conservative ideology, whereas a sexual strategies model suggests that this link is explained by variability in short-term versus long-term mating goals. In two preregistered studies using a college student and community sample (total N = 1,950), we examined whether experimentally manipulating pathogen threat and mate availability produced differences in political ideology and whether these differences were explained by disgust and sociosexual attitudes. Across both studies, we did not find evidence that manipulating pathogen threat or mate availability resulted in change in political ideology. In Study 1, manipulating mate availability was indirectly associated with greater political conservativism through stronger sociosexual attitudes that favor monogamy. These findings failed to replicate in Study 2. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.
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Ghelfi E, Christopherson CD, Urry HL, Lenne RL, Legate N, Ann Fischer M, Wagemans FMA, Wiggins B, Barrett T, Bornstein M, de Haan B, Guberman J, Issa N, Kim J, Na E, O’Brien J, Paulk A, Peck T, Sashihara M, Sheelar K, Song J, Steinberg H, Sullivan D. Reexamining the Effect of Gustatory Disgust on Moral Judgment: A Multilab Direct Replication of Eskine, Kacinik, and Prinz (2011). ADVANCES IN METHODS AND PRACTICES IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2020. [DOI: 10.1177/2515245919881152] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
Eskine, Kacinik, and Prinz’s (2011) influential experiment demonstrated that gustatory disgust triggers a heightened sense of moral wrongness. We report a large-scale multisite direct replication of this study conducted by labs in the Collaborative Replications and Education Project. Subjects in each sample were randomly assigned to one of three beverage conditions: bitter (disgusting), control (neutral), or sweet. Then, subjects made a series of judgments about the moral wrongness of the behavior depicted in six vignettes. In the original study ( N = 57), drinking the bitter beverage led to higher ratings of moral wrongness than did drinking the control or sweet beverage; a contrast between the bitter condition and the other two conditions was significant among conservative ( n = 19) but not liberal ( n = 25) subjects. In the current project, random-effects meta-analyses across all subjects ( N = 1,137, k = 11 studies), conservative subjects ( n = 142, k = 5), and liberal subjects ( n = 635, k = 9) revealed standardized overall effect sizes across replications that were smaller than reported in the original study. Some were in the opposite of the predicted direction; all had 95% confidence intervals containing zero, and all were smaller than the effect size the original authors could have meaningfully detected. Results of linear mixed-effects regressions revealed that drinking the bitter beverage led to higher ratings of moral wrongness than did drinking the control beverage but not the sweet beverage. Bayes factor tests revealed greater relative support for the null than for the replication hypothesis. The overall pattern provides little to no support for the theory that physical disgust via taste perception harshens judgments of moral wrongness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric Ghelfi
- Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University
| | | | | | - Richie L. Lenne
- Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
| | - Nicole Legate
- Department of Psychology, Illinois Institute of Technology
| | | | - Fieke M. A. Wagemans
- Department of Psychology, Tilburg University
- Institute for Socio-Economics, University of Duisburg-Essen
| | - Brady Wiggins
- Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University–Idaho
| | | | | | | | | | - Nada Issa
- Department of Psychology, Indiana University Northwest
| | - Joan Kim
- Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Elim Na
- Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine
| | | | - Aidan Paulk
- Department of Acupuncture, Oregon College of Oriental Medicine
| | - Tayler Peck
- Department of Psychology, Southern Oregon University
| | | | - Karen Sheelar
- Department of Psychology, Southern Oregon University
| | | | - Hannah Steinberg
- Department of Psychology, Pacific Graduate School of Psychology/Stanford University Doctor of Psychology Consortium
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Giner-Sorolla R, Kupfer T, Sabo J. What Makes Moral Disgust Special? An Integrative Functional Review. ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/bs.aesp.2017.10.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/05/2022]
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