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.

Association between stereotypical perceptions of persons infected with COVID-19 and individual differences in behavioral immune system

During the spread of COVID-19, prejudice and discrimination against infected persons, their family members, close contacts, and health care workers have become a problem. In this study, we investigated stereotypical perceptions of persons infected with COVID-19 and examined their association with individual differences in behavioral immune system activation. The results showed that the stereotypical perceptions of persons infected with COVID-19 were low sociality and high activity. Next, we examined the effect of infection vulnerability awareness on stereotypical perceptions. The results showed that the stronger the germ aversion, the stronger the perceived lack of infection prevention behaviors, the lower the perceived sociality of the persons infected with COVID-19, and the higher their own perceived infection prevention behaviors. The content of the stereotypes of the persons infected with COVID-19 and the factors influencing these stereotypes were discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Japanese society and psychology during the COVID-19 pandemic: Study based on a survey in late March 2020

The purpose of this study was to investigate the cognitions, behaviors, attitudes, and living conditions of Japanese people during the severe novel coronavirus pandemic that reached the country in January 2020 and to publish the data related to the study. Using experiential data gathered from 612 Japanese nationals in late March 2020, we conducted an exploratory analysis of the associations between the variables measured in order to capture an authentic portrait of a society grappling with an infectious disease. We found that infection preventive behaviors and exclusionary attitudes toward foreigners were associated with individual differences in the cognitive responses specific to infectious diseases and pathogen avoidance. In variables directly related to the pandemic, there were some differences by gender, but not by generation or area of residence. This study provides practical, essential in formation that could give academic researchers, policymakers, and social support agencies valuable insights into the social pathologies specific to infectious diseases, managing public health, and improving lives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Contagious Health Risk and Precautionary Social Distancing.

BACKGROUND: Since humans are social animals, social relations are incredibly important. However, in cases of contagious diseases such as the flu, social contacts also pose a health risk. According to prominent health behavior change theories, perceiving a risk for one's health motivates precautionary behaviors. The "behavioral immune system" approach suggests that social distancing might be triggered as a precautionary, evolutionarily learned behavior to prevent transmitting contagious diseases through social contact. This study examines the link between personal risk perception for an infectious disease and precautionary behavior for disease-prevention in the context of social relationships. METHODS: At 2-week intervals during the first semester, 100 Psychology freshmen indicated their flu risk perception, whether they had been ill during the previous week, and their friendships within their freshmen network for eight time points. RESULTS: Social network analysis revealed that participants who reported a high flu risk perception listed fewer friends (B = -0.10, OR = 0.91, p = 0.026), and were more likely to be ill at the next measuring point (B = 0.26, OR = 1.30, p = 0.005). Incoming friendship nominations increased the likelihood of illness (B = 0.14, OR = 1.15, p = 0.008), while the reduced number of friendship nominations only marginally decreased this likelihood (B = -0.07, OR = 0.93, p = 0.052). CONCLUSION: In accordance with the concept of a "behavioral immune system," participants with high flu risk perception displayed a social precautionary distancing even when in an environment, in which the behavior was ineffective to prevent an illness.

COVID-19 vaccination and the behavioral immune system: The newcomer and the old friend get along in preventing infection.

Despite its old evolutionary history and emotional relevance, the behavioral immune system is one of the less studied individual predictors of vaccine uptake. To fill the gap, we conducted a large online study (2072 participants) during the spring 2022 when the great majority of the Italian population had already received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Hierarchical binary logistic regression showed that, after controlling for the confounding effects of demographic and personality factors, there was a significant and positive association between pathogen disgust sensitivity and COVID-19 vaccine uptake (OR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.42-1.99). The likelihood of being vaccinated for a participant with the highest possible score on the PVD Germ Aversion scale was approximately 12 times higher than the likelihood for a participant with the lowest possible score. Public health messaging could leverage the activation of the behavioral immune system as an emotional driver of vaccine uptake.

Person and situation effects in predicting outgroup prejudice and avoidance during the COVID-19 pandemic

Recent theories of intergroup relations suggest that factors relevant to disease, disgust, and contagion predict prejudice towards ethnic outgroups. The current research explored the influence of contextual pathogen threat and individual differences in threat sensitivity on outgroup prejudice and avoidance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected from a sample of British adults in June 2020 (N = 524). A multi-level approach was employed to capture differences in confirmed COVID-19 cases across different regions in the UK. Results demonstrated that even in a "strong" pandemic context, individual differences in both disgust sensitivity (DS) and intergroup disgust sensitivity (ITG-DS) explained variability in outgroup distancing. Subjective perceptions of contextual pathogen prevalence, but not actual infection rates, also predicted greater outgroup avoidance. However, a significant cross-level interaction revealed that DS predicted outgroup distancing in regions with higher numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases, but not in areas of lower infection. Thus, individual differences in pathogen avoidance may be especially influential under high situational pathogen stress. There was also some evidence that pathogen threat also predicted greater ingroup attraction. Results provide important insights into factors that promote or inhibit positive intergroup relations during pandemics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Ecological introspection resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic: the threat perception of the pandemic was positively related to pro-environmental behaviors

How infectious diseases shape individual minds and behaviors has been of interest to researchers. We conducted four studies to examine whether the threat perception of the COVID-19 pandemic was positively related to pro-environmentalism. Study 1 (N = 1,508) showed that individuals' threat perception of the pandemic was correlated with their pro-environmental behaviors. Study 2 (N = 241) clarified the causality by manipulating threat perception and found that individuals with high (vs. low) threat perception reported higher pro-environmental willingness. Study 3 (N = 406) revealed that awe for nature mediated this relationship. Study 4 (N = 405) replicated Study 3 more than two years after the outbreak and demonstrated the findings were robust regardless of decreases in infection fear. These findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic provides individuals with an opportunity to reconsider the way they treat nature. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Effects of Pathogen-Avoidance Tendency on Infection-Prevention Behaviors and Exclusionary Attitudes toward Foreigners: A Longitudinal Study of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Japan.

This study investigated the changes in public behaviors and attitudes following the spread of COVID-19 in Japan. Using a longitudinal approach that analyzes the movement of an unpredictable and real infection threat to explain and predict human behavior during the pandemic-a novel approach in behavioral immune system research-a panel survey was conducted on Japanese citizens. The results of the survey, conducted in late January, mid-February, and early March 2020, indicated that the influence of the interaction between the changes in situational infection threat and individual differences in pathogen-avoidance tendency on infection-prevention behaviors and exclusionary attitudes toward foreigners was not significant. Moreover, frequent contact with foreigners had a mitigating effect on exclusionary attitudes. The study thus provided a valuable contribution to the application of behavioral immune-system responses to problems associated with infection threats. Moreover, consideration of the aspects of adaptive reaction and social learning allowed us to observe the process of adaptive strategies in novel environments under conditions of high ecological validity and to accurately understand the psychological response to infectious disease outbreaks.

Are we behaviorally immune to COVID-19 through robots?

In the context of the health risks of the COVID-19 pandemic, tourists' choices have shifted to reflect a subconscious psychological mechanism - the behavioral immune system - that facilitates human organisms to better identify plausible threats to ones' health through environment cues. This research draws upon this theoretical lens to assess tourists' pre-trip hotel evaluation in two 2 × 2 between-subject experiments. Experiment 1 (robot vs. human) tested the service provider's effect on hotel selection evaluation through the mediation of sense of control and the moderation of pandemic risk. Experiment 2 examined this chain of relationship through the moderation of hotel type. This research contributes to the literature by underscoring the pathogen-avoidance mechanism in tourist evaluation and the peril of robotization.

Does COVID-19 threat relate to intergroup attitudes? A test in the U.K

Social and evolutionary psychologists propose that humans have acquired an evolutionary mechanism that facilitates pathogen avoidance behavior: the behavioral immune system (BIS). Previous studies have revealed that the BIS yields negative attitudes toward out-group members. Given the clear relevance of pathogen-avoidance psychology to individuals' reactions to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the present research examined whether attitudes toward potentially pathogenic outgroups during the pandemic would reflect the BIS. Using large-scale panel data (N = 1,548) collected in May 2020 in 3 of the U.K.'s devolved nations (England, Scotland, and Wales), we examined whether perceived COVID-19 threat was associated with negative attitudes toward 2 different national out-groups linked to the initial outbreak (Italy and China), as well as the in-group (the U.K.). Failing to support the BIS hypothesis, mini-meta-analyses on results from the 3 nations revealed that COVID-19 threat was only very weakly associated with attitude toward the U.K., Italy, and China. Results suggest that implications from pathogen psychology might be more limited than previously thought and apply only to specific out-group members. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved) Impact Statement Using large-scale panel data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic (May 2020) in England, Wales, and Scotland, we examined whether perceived threat from the coronavirus would be related to intergroup attitudes toward the U.K., China, and Italy. Contrary to previous studies on pathogen psychology suggesting pathogen threat should predict negative attitudes toward out-groups, we found that COVID-19 threat was only weakly related to intergroup attitudes. Our results suggest that implications from pathogen psychology might be more limited than previously thought and apply only to specific out-group members. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Disgust sensitivity in early pregnancy as a response to high pathogen risk.

Introduction: Considered a part of the behavioral immune system (BIS), disgust sensitivity is expected to be adjusting as a response to the actual level of the environmental health risks. Methods: In this preregistered study, we tested the hypothesis that disgust sensitivity would be higher during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period in pregnant women. In this between-subject study with a longitudinal trend design, we administered the Disgust Scale-Revised to 200 pregnant women before the pandemic and to 350 pregnant women during the pandemic. Results: We found a small but significant effect of the pandemic on disgust sensitivity, such that higher disgust sensitivity was found in women pregnant during the pandemic. This effect was stronger in primiparae, however, the interaction between parity and the pandemic period was not significant. Disgust sensitivity decreased with age. No differences in terms of nausea and vomiting were found between the women pregnant before and during the pandemic. Discussion: Our findings indicate that although BIS is presumed to function as a complex mechanism to prevent health-threatening behaviors, its activation in pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic is rather weak.

Of Germs and Culture; Parasite Stress as the Origin of Individualism-Collectivism.

Among four proposed origins of individualism-collectivism, modernization theory, rice versus wheat theory, climato-economic theory, and pathogen stress theory, the latter has gained more attention in cross-cultural and evolutionary psychology. Since the parasite stress theory of values and sociality makes a connection between infectious diseases and cultural orientations, it gained even more popularity during the COVID pandemic. But despite extensive research on parasite stress theory, it is not still clear what kind of infectious disease contributes more to the emergence of cultures, what are the possible mechanisms through which pathogenic threat gives rise to cultural systems, and how parasite stress might affect vertical vs. horizontal dimensions of individualism-collectivism. This review summarizes and integrates major findings of parasite stress theory related to individualism-collectivism and its closely related variables and discusses future directions that researchers can take to answer the remaining questions.

Responses to COVID-19 Threats: an Evolutionary Psychological Analysis.

Responses to COVID-19 public health interventions have been lukewarm. For example, only 64% of the US population has received at least two vaccinations. Because most public health interventions require people to behave in ways that are evolutionarily novel, evolutionary psychological theory and research on mismatch theory, the behavioral immune system, and individual differences can help us gain a better understanding of how people respond to public health information. Primary sources of threat information during the pandemic (particularly in early phases) were geographic differences in morbidity and mortality statistics. We argue that people are unlikely to respond to this type of evolutionarily novel information, particularly under conditions of high uncertainty. However, because individual differences affect threat perceptions, some individual differences will be associated with threat responses. We conducted two studies (during Phase 1 and 2 years later), using data from primarily public sources. We found that state-level COVID-19 morbidity and mortality rates had no relationship with mental health symptoms (an early indicator of how people were responding to the pandemic), suggesting that people-in general-were not attending to this type of information. This result is consistent with the evolutionary psychological explanation that statistical information is likely to have a weak effect on the behavioral immune system. We also found that individual differences (neuroticism, IQ, age, and political ideology) affected how people responded to COVID-19 threats, supporting a niche-picking explanation. We conclude with suggestions for future research and suggestions for improving interventions and promoting greater compliance.

Impact of National Pandemic Lockdowns on Perceived Threat of Immigrants: A Natural Quasi-Experiment Across 23 Countries

Xenophobia and anti-immigrant attacks rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet this may not be solely due to the disease threat. According to theories of frustration and scapegoating, situational obstructions and deprivation can motivate prejudice against outgroups. Using a global natural quasi-experimental design, this study tests whether the restrictiveness of national lockdowns can explain higher individual-level perceptions of immigrant threat. Data of 45,894 participants from 23 countries were analyzed. Both lockdown duration and lockdown severity were positively associated with individuals' perceived threat of immigrants. The lockdown effects were independent of objective and subjective measures of disease threat, and there was no evidence that disease threat drives people's prejudice toward immigrants. Subgroup analysis suggested the lockdown effects were reliable in Europe and the Americas, but not in Asia. These findings suggest a need to mitigate frustration and scapegoating when implementing lockdowns, and to distinguish the influence of societal restrictions from disease threat.

Does COVID-19 threat relate to intergroup attitudes? A test in the U.K

Social and evolutionary psychologists propose that humans have acquired an evolutionary mechanism that facilitates pathogen avoidance behavior: the behavioral immune system (BIS). Previous studies have revealed that the BIS yields negative attitudes toward out-group members. Given the clear relevance of pathogen-avoidance psychology to individuals' reactions to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the present research examined whether attitudes toward potentially pathogenic outgroups during the pandemic would reflect the BIS. Using large-scale panel data (N = 1,548) collected in May 2020 in 3 of the U.K.'s devolved nations (England, Scotland, and Wales), we examined whether perceived COVID-19 threat was associated with negative attitudes toward 2 different national out-groups linked to the initial outbreak (Italy and China), as well as the in-group (the U.K.). Failing to support the BIS hypothesis, mini-meta-analyses on results from the 3 nations revealed that COVID-19 threat was only very weakly associated with attitude toward the U.K., Italy, and China. Results suggest that implications from pathogen psychology might be more limited than previously thought and apply only to specific out-group members.

Sensitizing the Behavioral-Immune System: The Power of Social Pain

People who believe they are invulnerable to infectious diseases often fail to protect themselves against the disease threats that others pose to them. The current paper hypothesizes that social pain—the experience of feeling interpersonally hurt or rejected—can sensitize the behavioral-immune system by giving people added reason to see others as worthy of protecting themselves against. We obtained four daily diary samples involving 2,794 participants who reported how hurt/rejected they felt by those they knew, how personally concerned they were about the spread of illness/COVID-19, and how vigilantly they engaged in self-protective behaviors to safeguard their health each day. An integrative data analysis revealed robust evidence that people who believed they were invulnerable to infectious disease engaged in more concerted efforts to protect themselves against the greater daily risk of contracting COVID-19 when being in acute social pain gave them added reason to see others as harmful to them. © The Author(s) 2022.

Coughing Customer: The Interplay of the Behavioral Immune System and Emotional Labor of Frontline Workers

Exploring the context of a coughing customer for frontline workers during the Covid-19 pandemic, we utilized the semi-structured interviews of 38 participants to enhance understanding of cognitive, emotional, and vocational challenges present when a frontline worker perceives a health risk (coughing) while working. Using qualitative content analysis to analyze the interviews, we found both contexts of the actual cough and the environment in which the cough occurs to encourage the cognitive process to trigger the behavioral immune system of frontline workers. Furthermore, the findings suggest the behavioral immune system may be similar to the existing biological immune system in its adaptability. Finally, we suggest implications and directions for future research along with propositions. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Health anxiety model of cyberchondria, fears, obsessions, sleep quality, and negative affect during COVID-19.

The aim of the study was to explore the relationships among cyberchondria, fear of COVID-19, health anxiety, obsessions, sleep quality, and negative affect in a national community sample of Turkish participants. A sample of 8,276 volunteers, aged between 18 and 65, were recruited via an online platform. The Perceived Vulnerability about Diseases Questionnaire, Fear of COVID-19 Scale, Cyberchondria Severity Scale, Short Health Anxiety Inventory, Depression Stress Anxiety Scale-21, Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index were completed by participants. Data were analyzed using mixture structural equation modelling approach. Results revealed that perceived vulnerability to disease was found to be positively related with cyberchondria, poor sleep quality, health anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Negative affect was positively associated with obsessive-compulsive symptoms, fears of COVID-19, cyberchondria severity, and poor sleep quality. Additionally, fear of COVID-19 was positively related to health anxiety. Also, cyberchondria severity was found to be positively associated with poor sleep quality and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Mixture analysis classified participants into six latent classes: 1) Risk-Aversive Healthy Group, 2) Incautious Healthy Group, 3) Infection Obsessions Group, 4) Health Anxiety Group, 5) Negative Affect Group, and 6) General Psychopathology Group. The national survey data showed that perceived vulnerability to diseases, negative affect, fear of COVID-19, cyberchondria, health anxiety, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and sleep quality appeared to be at the center of pandemic health anxiety.

The behavioral immune system and use of transportation services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction: A primary means of reducing the spread of COVID-19 is avoidance of close contact with other people, particularly in closed areas. Transportation services generally require being in closed spaces with other people, which has resulted in a significant reduction in use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding individual differences associated with likelihood of using transportation services may help in targeting individuals that are hesitant to use these services. Specifically, psychological processes that encourage disease avoidance (e.g., disgust sensitivity, germ aversion) may play a key role in people's hesitancy to use transportation services. The aim of this study was to identify demographic groups that were hesitant to use transportation services during the COVID-19 pandemic and determine the extent to which individual differences in disease avoidance processes are associated with the likelihood of using transportation services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: A national sample of U.S. adults (N = 947) completed an online survey about the likelihood of using transportation services (i.e., public transportation, rental car, ride share, intercity trains, intercity buses, and commercial flight), germ aversion, disgust sensitivity, demographics, and control variables (e.g., COVID-19 concern). Results: Regression analyses indicated that greater germ aversion was associated with lower likelihood of transportation use for all measured transportation services, controlling for disgust sensitivity, demographics, and control variables. Older age and higher COVID-19 concern were associated with lower likelihood of using most of the transportation services, while town size was associated with greater likelihood of using public transportation and ride share. Discussion: Overall, germ aversion was consistently uniquely associated with lower likelihood of transportation service use. In the process of getting back to normal after the COVID-19 threat is reduced, structuring messages that target hesitant populations and use malleable psychological mechanisms like disease avoidance may aid in encouraging behavior change and increase transportation service use.

Heightened religiosity proactively and reactively responds to the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe: Novel insights from the parasite-stress theory of sociality and the behavioral immune system theory.

According to the parasite-stress theory of sociality and the behavioral immune system theory, heightened religiosity serves an anti-pathogen function by promoting in-group assortative sociality. Thus, highly religious countries/territories could have better control of the COVID-19 (proactively avoids disease-threat), and heightened COVID-19 threat could increase religiosity (reactively responds to disease-threat). As expected, country-level religiosity (religion-related online searches (Allah, Buddhism, Jesus, etc.) and number of total religions/ethnoreligions) negatively and significantly predicted COVID-19 severity (a composite index of COVID-19 susceptibility, reproductive rate, morbidity, and mortality rates) (Study 1a), after accounting for covariates (e.g., socioeconomic factors, ecological factors, collectivism index, cultural tightness-looseness index, COVID-19 policy response, test-to-case ratio). Moreover, multilevel analysis accounting for daily- (e.g., time-trend effect, season) and macro-level (same as in Study 1a) covariates showed that country-level religious searches, compared with the number of total religions/ethnoreligions, were more robust in negatively and significantly predicting daily-level COVID-19 severity during early pandemic stages (Study 1b). At weekly level, perceived coronavirus threat measured with coronavirus-related searches (corona, covid, covid-19, etc.), compared with actual COVID-19 threat measured with epidemiological data, showed larger effects in positively predicting religious searches (Study 2), after accounting for weekly- (e.g., autocorrelation, time-trend effect, season, religious holidays, major-illness-related searches) and macro-level (e.g., Christian-majority country/territory and all country-level variables in Study 1) covariates. Accordingly, heightened religiosity could proactively and reactively respond to the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe.