Do Islanders Have a More Reactive Behavioral Immune System? Social Cognitions and Preferred Interpersonal Distances During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The space between us: The effect of perceived threat on discomfort distance and perceived pleasantness of interpersonal vicarious touch

The space we keep between ourselves and others allows us either to engage in close shared experiences or to distance ourselves for safety. Focusing primarily on the latter, previous studies have identified a link between interpersonal boundaries and perceived threat, perceptual discrimination including pain perception as well as how we move and behave as a result. Although interpersonal distancing has been studied in a range of contexts, a mechanistic way of how such spatial behaviour might alter how we perceive affective touch has yet to be investigated. Here we probe the effect of perceived threat of COVID-19 on interpersonal boundary preferences and perceived pleasantness of vicarious affective touch. Our results demonstrate that increased perceived threat from COVID-19 is associated with larger boundaries of discomfort distance. Moreover, we show a positive association between perceived threat and pleasantness of vicarious touch coming from a member of the household, but no association with outsider touch. Importantly, rather than focusing on the purely "positive" and prosocial functions of affective touch, these results bolster a novel perspective that socially-relevant cues guide both approach and avoidance behaviours.

Think positive! Resolving human motion ambiguity in the presence of disease threat

Recently, approach-avoidance tendencies and visual perception biases have been increasingly studied using bistable point-light walkers (PLWs). Prior studies have found a facing-the-viewer bias when one is primed with general threat stimuli (e.g. angry faces), explained by the "error management theory", as failing to detect a threat as approaching is riskier than the opposite. Importantly, no study has explored how disease threat - linked to the behavioural immune system - might affect this bias. This study aimed to explore whether disease-signalling cues can alter how we perceive the motion direction of ambiguous PLWs. Throughout 3 experiments, participants indicated the motion direction of a bistable PLW previously primed with a control or disease-signalling stimuli - that is, face with a surgical mask (Experiment 1), sickness sound (Experiment 2), or face with a disease cue (Experiment 3). Results showed that sickness cues do not significantly modulate the perception of approach-avoidance behaviours. However, a pattern emerged in Experiments 2 and 3, suggesting that sickness stimuli led to more facing away percepts. Unlike other types of threat, this implies that disease-related threat stimuli might trigger a distinct perceptual bias, indicating a preference to avoid a possible infection source. Nonetheless, this finding warrants future investigations.

Coronavirus-Related Searches on the Internet Predict COVID-19 Vaccination Rates in the Real World: A Behavioral Immune System Perspective

According to the smoke detector and functional flexibility principles of human behavioral immune system (BIS), the exposure to COVID-19 cues could motivate vaccine uptake. Using the tool of Google Trends, we tested that coronavirus-related searches-which assessed natural exposure to COVID-19 cues-would positively predict actual vaccination rates. As expected, coronavirus-related searches positively and significantly predicted vaccination rates in the United States (Study 1a) and across the globe (Study 2a) after accounting for a range of covariates. The stationary time series analyses with covariates and autocorrelation structure of the dependent variable confirmed that more coronavirus-related searches compared with last week indicated increases in vaccination rates compared with last week in the United States (Study 1b) and across the globe (Study 2b). With real-time web search data, psychological scientists could test their research questions in real-life settings and at a large scale to expand the ecological validity and generalizability of the findings.

Exploring links between pathogen avoidance motivation, COVID-19 case counts, and immune function

OBJECTIVES

The selection pressures exerted by pathogens have played important roles in shaping the biology and behavior of animals, including humans. Immune systems recognize and respond to cues of infection or damage by coordinating cellular, humoral, and metabolic shifts that promote recovery. Moreover, animals also possess a repertoire of behavioral tools to help combat the threat of pathogens, often referred to as the behavioral immune system. Recently, researchers have begun to examine how cognitive, affective, and behavioral disease avoidance mechanisms interact with the biological immune system.

METHODS

The present study explored relationships among individual differences in behavioral immune system activity (e.g., pathogen disgust), shifts in SARS-CoV-2 infection risk (i.e., 7-day case averages), and immune function in a community cohort from McLennan County, Texas, USA (n = 387).

RESULTS

Levels of disease concern were not consistently associated with immune markers. However, serum levels of IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-2, and IL-8, as well as serum killing ability of Escherichia coli, each varied with case counts. Additional analyses found that case counts also predicted changes in stress physiology, but not subjective measures of distress. However, follow-up mediation models did not provide evidence that relationships between case counts and immunological outcomes were mediated through levels of stress.

CONCLUSIONS

The present project provides initial evidence that markers of immune function may be sensitive to changes in infection risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. This adds to the growing body of research finding relationships among behavioral and biological pathogen management mechanisms.

Smaller preferred interpersonal distance for joint versus parallel action

During social interaction, humans prefer to keep a certain distance between themselves and other individuals. This preferred 'interpersonal distance' (IPD) is known to be sensitive to social context, and in the present study we aimed to further investigate the extent to which IPD is affected by the specific type of social interaction. In particular, we focused on the contrast between joint actions, where two or more individuals coordinate their actions in space and time to achieve a shared goal, and parallel actions, where individuals act alongside each other but individually. We predicted that joint action would be associated with a smaller preferred IPD compared to parallel action. Additionally, given that this research took place in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we aimed to assess whether IPD preferences are affected by individuals' concerns about infection in general, as well as COVID-19 in particular. We predicted that higher individual concerns would be associated with greater preferred IPD. To test these hypotheses, we asked participants to imagine different social scenarios (involving either joint or parallel actions alongside a stranger) and indicate, on a visual scale, their preferred IPD. The results of two experiments (n = 211, n = 212) showed that participants preferred a shorter distance when they imagined acting jointly compared to when they imagined acting in parallel. Moreover, participants who reported higher discomfort for potential pathogen contact and who were more aware of the COVID-19 context in which the study took place preferred a larger IPD in general. Our results provide further evidence that different types of social interaction shape IPD preference. We discuss potential reasons for this phenomenon and highlight remaining questions for future research.

The influence of face mask on social spaces depends on the behavioral immune system

Interacting with objects and people requires specifying localized spaces where these interactions can take place. Previous studies suggest that the space for interacting with objects (i.e., the peripersonal space) contributes to defining the space for interacting with people (i.e., personal and interpersonal spaces). Furthermore, situational factors, such as wearing a face mask, have been shown to influence social spaces, but how they influence the relation between action and social spaces and are modulated by individual factors is still not well understood. In this context, the present study investigated the relationship between action peripersonal and social personal and interpersonal spaces in participants approached by male and female virtual characters wearing or not wearing a face mask. We also measured individual factors related to the behavioral immune system, namely willingness to take risks, perceived infectability and germ aversion. The results showed that compared to peripersonal space, personal space was smaller and interpersonal space was larger, but the three spaces were positively correlated. All spaces were altered by gender, being shorter when participants faced female characters. Personal and interpersonal spaces were reduced with virtual characters wearing a face mask, especially in participants highly aversive to risks and germs. Altogether, these findings suggest that the regulation of the social spaces depends on the representation of action peripersonal space, but with an extra margin that is modulated by situational and personal factors in relation to the behavioral immune system.

How to behave when marooned: the behavioural component of the island syndrome remains underexplored

Animals on islands typically depart from their mainland relatives in assorted aspects of their biology. Because they seem to occur in concert, and to some extent evolve convergently in disparate taxa, these changes are referred to as the 'island syndrome'. While morphological, physiological and life-history components of the island syndrome have received considerable attention, much less is known about how insularity affects behaviour. In this paper, we argue why changes in personality traits and cognitive abilities can be expected to form part of the island syndrome. We provide an overview of studies that have compared personality traits and cognitive abilities between island and mainland populations, or among islands. Overall, the pickings are remarkably slim. There is evidence that animals on islands tend to be bolder than on the mainland, but effects on other personality traits go either way. The evidence for effects of insularity on cognitive abilities or style is highly circumstantial and very mixed. Finally, we consider the ecological drivers that may induce such changes, and the mechanisms through which they might occur. We conclude that our knowledge of the behavioural and cognitive responses to island environments remains limited, and we encourage behavioural biologists to make more use of these 'natural laboratories for evolution'.

Social distancing from foreign individuals as a disease-avoidance mechanism: Testing the assumptions of the behavioral immune system theory during the COVID-19 pandemic

Topics of prejudice, discrimination, and negative attitudes toward outgroups have attracted much attention of social scientists during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the preference for social distancing can originate from the perception of threat. One of the theoretical approaches that offers an explanation for avoidance tendencies is the behavioral immune system theory. As a motivational system that aims to identify and avoid pathogens, the behavioral immune system has been shown to be triggered by various cues of a potential disease threat (e.g., the risk of contracting a virus), which further leads to negative social consequences such as xenophobia, negative attitudes toward various social groups, and distancing tendencies. We present a correlational study (N = 588; Polish sample) that was designed to test mediational models derived from the behavioral immune system theory, using the COVID-19 pandemic as a source of natural disease threat. In serial mediation analyses we show that the perceived threat of COVID-19 translates into greater preferred social distance from foreign individuals, and that this occurs in two ways: 1) via pathogen disgust (but not sexual or moral disgust), and 2) via germ aversion (but not perceived infectability). Both pathogen disgust and germ aversion further predict general feelings toward foreign individuals, which finally determine the preferred social distance from these individuals. The results support the behavioral immune system theory as an important concept for understanding social distancing tendencies.

Unrealistic Optimism and Risk for COVID-19 Disease

Risk perception and consequently engagement in behaviors to avoid illness often do not match actual risk of infection, morbidity, and mortality. Unrealistic optimism occurs when individuals falsely believe that their personal outcomes will be more favorable than others' in the same risk category. Natural selection could favor overconfidence if its benefits, such as psychological resilience, outweigh its costs. However, just because optimism biases may have offered fitness advantages in our evolutionary past does not mean that they are always optimal. The current project examined relationships among personal risk for severe COVID-19, risk perceptions, and preventative behaviors. We predicted that those with higher risk of severe COVID-19 would exhibit unrealistic optimism and behave in ways inconsistent with their elevated risk of morbidity and mortality. Clinical risk scores for severe COVID-19 were calculated and compared with COVID-19 threat appraisal, compliance with shelter-in-place orders (March 13–May 22, 2020) and travel restrictions, compliance with public health recommendations, and potential covariates like self-rated knowledge about COVID-19 in a robust dataset including 492 participants from McLennan County, TX, USA. While those with high clinical risk acknowledged their greater likelihood of experiencing severe illness if infected, they actually reported lower perceived likelihood of becoming infected in the first place. While it is possible that those with higher clinical risk scores truly are less likely to become infected, the pattern and significance of these results held after controlling for possible occupational exposure, household size, and other factors related to infection probability. Higher clinical risk also predicted more recent travel within Texas and lower distress during the pandemic (i.e., feeling less stressed, depressed, and helpless). Additional behavioral data suggested that those with higher clinical risk scores did not generally behave differently than those with lower scores during the shelter-in-place order. While unrealistic optimism may provide some short-term psychological benefits, it could be dangerous due to improper assessment of hazardous situations; inferring that optimism bias has evolutionary origins does not mean that unrealistic optimism is “optimal” in every situation. This may be especially true when individuals face novel sources (or scales) of risk, such as a global pandemic.

Testing the Disgust-Based Mechanism of Homonegative Attitudes in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Negative attitudes and stigmatization can originate from the perception of a disease-related threat. Following the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is often suggested that incidents of discriminatory behavior are the result of defense mechanisms aimed at avoiding pathogens. According to the behavioral immune system theory, people are motivated to distance themselves from individuals who show signs of infection, or who are only heuristically associated with a disease, primarily because of the disgust they evoke. In this paper we focus on negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians who are among social groups that have been persistently framed as "unclean." In our correlational study (N = 500 heterosexual participants; Polish sample data collected during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Poland, in March/April 2020) we tested moderation models derived from the behavioral immune system theory. Specifically, we investigated whether perceived vulnerability to disease and perceived threat of contracting COVID-19 moderate the relation between disgust and homonegativity. We found that sexual disgust (but not pathogen nor moral disgust) predicted homonegative attitudes. This effect was stronger for participants expressing higher levels of perceived vulnerability to disease but was not dependent on the perception of the COVID-19 threat. The results reaffirm previous evidence indicating a pivotal role of disgust in disease-avoidance mechanisms. They also point to functional flexibility of the behavioral immune system by demonstrating the moderating role of perceived vulnerability to disease in shaping homonegative attitudes. Finally, they show that the threat of COVID-19 does not strengthen the relationship between disgust and homonegativity.

Trust in Science, Perceived Vulnerability to Disease, and Adherence to Pharmacological and Non-pharmacological COVID-19 Recommendations

Protection motivation theory (PMT) is a theoretical framework informative for understanding behavioral intentions and choices during exceptional and uncommon circumstances, such as a pandemic of respiratory infectious disease. PMT postulates both the threat appraisal and the coping appraisal as predictors of health behaviors. Recent advances in the field of behavioral immune system (BIS) research suggest that humans are equipped with a set of psychological adaptations enabling them to detect the disease-threat and activate behavioral avoidance of pathogens. The present study, set within PMT framework and informed by the BIS research, aimed to explain and predict voluntary adherence to COVID-19 guidelines by perceived personal risk and vulnerability to disease as threat appraisal variables, and trust in science as the response efficacy element of coping appraisal. Gender, age, belief in the second wave, perceived personal risk, germ aversion, and trust in science were all found to be significant positive predictors of the intent to adhere to non-pharmacological COVID-19 recommendations, with the belief in the second wave, germ aversion, and trust in science being the most important ones. On the other hand, only the belief in the second wave and trust in science were significant positive predictors of the intent to adhere to pharmacological COVID-19 recommendations (i.e., to vaccinate). Interventions aimed at enhancing preventative measures adherence should take into account that the psychological mechanisms underlying adherence to these two types of recommendations are not identical.