Researchers are exploring whether these ubiquitous fluorinated molecules might worsen infections or hamper vaccine effectiveness.
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Edited by Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved September 6, 2016 (received for review May 9, 2016)
Significance
Pathogens, and antipathogen behavioral strategies, affect myriad aspects of human behavior. Recent findings suggest that antipathogen strategies relate to political attitudes, with more ideologically conservative individuals reporting more disgust toward pathogen cues, and with higher parasite stress nations being, on average, more conservative. However, no research has yet adjudicated between two theoretical accounts proposed to explain these relationships between pathogens and politics. We find that national parasite stress and individual disgust sensitivity relate more strongly to adherence to traditional norms than they relate to support for barriers between social groups. These results suggest that the relationship between pathogens and politics reflects intragroup motivations more than intergroup motivations.
Abstract
People who are more avoidant of pathogens are more politically conservative, as are nations with greater parasite stress. In the current research, we test two prominent hypotheses that have been proposed as explanations for these relationships. The first, which is an intragroup account, holds that these relationships between pathogens and politics are based on motivations to adhere to local norms, which are sometimes shaped by cultural evolution to have pathogen-neutralizing properties. The second, which is an intergroup account, holds that these same relationships are based on motivations to avoid contact with outgroups, who might pose greater infectious disease threats than ingroup members. Results from a study surveying 11,501 participants across 30 nations are more consistent with the intragroup account than with the intergroup account. National parasite stress relates to traditionalism (an aspect of conservatism especially related to adherence to group norms) but not to social dominance orientation (SDO; an aspect of conservatism especially related to endorsements of intergroup barriers and negativity toward ethnic and racial outgroups). Further, individual differences in pathogen-avoidance motives (i.e., disgust sensitivity) relate more strongly to traditionalism than to SDO within the 30 nations.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: j.m.tybur{at}vu.nl.
Author contributions: J.M.T. and Y.I. designed research; J.M.T., Y.I., L.A., P.B., F.K.B., M.d.B., D.V.B., L.B., I.C., J.A.C., N.S.C., A.C., J.R.C., P.C., V.C.A., D.E.D., A.M.F., D.C.S.F., K.I., I.J., T.J., F.v.L., D.M.G.L., N.P.L., J.C.M., S.M., J.H.P., B.P., M.B.P., D.P., G.P., P.P., M.J.R., L.M.R., B. Sandin, B. Sevi, D.D.S., N.S., S.T., C.W., J.C.Y., and I.Ž. performed research; J.M.T. analyzed data; and J.M.T. and Y.I. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1607398113/-/DCSupplemental.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
Pathogens and politics
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