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 pathogenneutralizing 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.political ideology | pathogens | disgust | culture | evolutionary psychology T he costs imposed by pathogens on their hosts have spurred the evolution of complex antipathogen defenses, many of which are behavioral (1, 2). In humans, such defenses range from the proximate avoidance of pathogen cues to the execution of complex rituals, often with far-reaching consequences (3). At the individual level, functionally specialized psychological mechanisms detect pathogen cues and motivate avoidance of physical contact with pathogens [e.g., via the emotion of disgust (4)]. These mechanisms, which have been collectively referred to as the behavioral immune system, influence, among other things, mate preferences (5, 6), dietary preferences (7), and person perception (8) (summarized in 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.

Knowledge of animals may influence children"s beliefs and behaviour toward them, thus building positive attitudes toward animals is one of main goals of environmental education programmes. Although keeping animals contributes to the increase of children"s positive attitudes toward wild animals, pet owners show similar negative attitudes toward less popular animals such as insects, bats or rats than non-pet owners. Moreover, some of these animals are emblazoned with various myths (hereafter alternative conceptions) which may have a negative impact on children"s attitudes toward them. We used a novel approach with two questionnaires with nearly identical items for identifying attitudes to bats and spiders in a sample of primary school participants (N = 196) aged 10 -16 years. Score from each questionnaire was factor analysed and then compared with a pair-wise statistic. Children (especially girls) showed more negative attitudes toward spiders in comparison with bats. Both knowledge and alternative conceptions were distributed randomly irrespective of children"s age or gender. We found a moderate, but significant correlation between alternative conceptions and attitudes, whereas more alternative conceptions resulted in more negative attitudes. Interestingly, the link between attitude and knowledge was found just for bats, but not for spiders perhaps due to greater fear from spiders. Implications of the study for the science education practise are discussed.

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Considerable research has examined human mate preferences across cultures, finding universal sex differences in preferences for attractiveness and resources as well as sources of systematic cultural variation. Two competing perspectives—an evolutionary psychological perspective and a biosocial role perspective—offer alternative explanations for these findings. However, the original data on which each perspective relies are decades old, and the literature is fraught with conflicting methods, analyses, results, and conclusions. Using a new 45-country sample ( N = 14,399), we attempted to replicate classic studies and test both the evolutionary and biosocial role perspectives. Support for universal sex differences in preferences remains robust: Men, more than women, prefer attractive, young mates, and women, more than men, prefer older mates with financial prospects. Cross-culturally, both sexes have mates closer to their own ages as gender equality increases. Beyond age of partner, neither pathogen prevalence nor gender equality robustly predicted sex differences or preferences across countries.

The perceived popularity of animals plays a crucial role in their support by the general public and consequently in the success of conservation efforts. We experimentally investigated with Slovak schoolchildren the role of animal coloration and basic human emotions in the willingness to protect animals. Both unaltered and experimentally manipulated pictures of aposematic animals increased perceived danger. Spiders and snakes were perceived as more dangerous/disgusting than other taxa, particularly birds and mammals. Children showed significantly a stronger willingness to protect aposematic animals over inconspicuous, cryptic animals. Perceived disgust and danger of animals negatively correlated with a willingness to protect them with females showing greater fear of animals than males. Our results suggest that the use of aposematic animals in conservation programs may increase their popularity and public support. bs_bs_banner Animal Conservation. Print ISSN 1367-9430 Animal coloration and conservation P. Prokop and J. Fanč ovič ová Animal coloration and conservation P. Prokop and J. Fanč ovič ová Supporting informationAdditional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article:Appendix S1. List of species used in PowerPoint presentation.Animal coloration and conservation P. Prokop and J. Fanč ovič ová

Students' attitudes toward science significantly alter their achievement in science. Therefore, identification and influence of attitudes became to be an essential part of educational research. This study has been initiated by the idea that; research in students' attitudes toward science often involves science in general, but particular disciplines like biology or chemistry have been overlooked. Thus, this study is about Slovak students' attitude toward biology through six dimensions; interest, career, importance, teacher, equipment and difficulty. The study used a 30-item Biology Attitude Questionnaire (BAQ) to measure students' attitudes toward biology education. The data were obtained from 655 secondary school students attending eight typical elementary schools in Slovakia. Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) revealed a negative effect of age whereas the effect of gender was not significant. Univariate results, on the other hand, indicated that there is a significant interaction of students' interest in relation with grade and gender. One of the findings of the study is that, students' attitude toward biology teacher is strongly affected by teacher identity. This can be taken as a hint for future research. That effect of teacher should be included as a parameter to be considered for the studies related to student attitude.