Strangers look sicker (with implications in times of COVID-19).
Bioessays
; 43(3): e2000158, 2021 03.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-935000
ABSTRACT
We animals have evolved a variety of mechanisms to avoid conspecifics who might be infected. It is currently unclear whether and why this "behavioral immune system" targets unfamiliar individuals more than familiar ones. Here I answer this question in humans, using publicly available data of a recent study on 1969 participants from India and 1615 from the USA. The apparent health of a male stranger, as estimated from his face, and the comfort with contact with him were a direct function of his similarity to the men in the local community. This held true regardless of whether the face carried overt signs of infection. I conclude that our behavioral immune system is finely tuned to degrees of outgroupness - and that cues of outgroupness are partly processed as cues of infectiousness. These findings, which were consistent across the two cultures, support the notion that the pathogens of strangers are perceived as more dangerous.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Avoidance Learning
/
Cues
/
Facial Recognition
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Adult
/
Animals
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
English
Journal:
Bioessays
Journal subject:
Biology
/
Molecular Biology
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Bies.202000158
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