The evolution of disgust for pathogen detection and avoidance.
Sci Rep
; 11(1): 13468, 2021 06 29.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1387478
ABSTRACT
The behavioral immune system posits that disgust functions to protect animals from pathogen exposure. Therefore, cues of pathogen risk should be a primary driver influencing variation in disgust. Yet, to our knowledge, neither the relationship between current pathogen risk and disgust, nor the correlation between objective and perceived pathogen risk have been addressed using ecologically valid measures in a global sample. The current article reports two studies addressing these gaps. In Study 1, we include a global sample (n = 361) and tested the influence of both perceived pathogen exposure and an objective measure of pathogen risk-local communicable infectious disease mortality rates-on individual differences in pathogen and sexual disgust sensitivities. In Study 2, we first replicate Study 1's analyses in another large sample (n = 821), targeting four countries (US, Italy, Brazil, and India); we then replaced objective and perceived pathogen risk with variables specific to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In Study 1, both local infection mortality rates and perceived infection exposure predicted unique variance in pathogen and sexual disgust. In Study 2, we found that perceived infection exposure positively predicted sexual disgust, as predicted. When substituting perceived and objective SARS-CoV-2 risk in our models, perceived risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 positively predicted pathogen and sexual disgust, and state case rates negatively predicted pathogen disgust. Further, in both studies, objective measures of risk (i.e., local infection mortality and SARS-CoV-2 rates) positively correlated with subjective measures of risk (i.e., perceived infection exposure and perceived SARS-CoV-2 risk). Ultimately, these results provide two pieces of foundational evidence for the behavioral immune system 1) perceptions of pathogen risk accurately assay local, objective mortality risk across countries, and 2) both perceived and objective pathogen risk explain variance in disgust levels.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Avoidance Learning
/
Health Behavior
/
Disgust
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
/
Young adult
Country/Region as subject:
North America
/
South America
/
Asia
/
Brazil
/
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
Sci Rep
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S41598-021-91712-3
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