Pathogen disgust sensitivity protects against infection in a high pathogen environment

Abstract

Disgust is hypothesized to be an evolved emotion that functions to regulate the avoidance of pathogen-related stimuli and behaviors. Individuals with higher pathogen disgust sensitivity (PDS) are predicted to be exposed to and thus infected by fewer pathogens, though no studies have tested this directly. Furthermore, PDS is hypothesized to be locally calibrated to the types of pathogens normally encountered and the fitness-related costs and benefits of infection and avoidance. Market integration (the degree of production for and consumption from market-based economies) influences the relative costs/benefits of pathogen exposure and avoidance through sanitation, hygiene, and lifestyle changes, and is thus predicted to affect PDS. Here, we examine the function of PDS in disease avoidance, its environmental calibration, and its socioecological variation by examining associations among PDS, market-related lifestyle factors, and measures of bacterial, viral, and macroparasitic infection at the individual, household, and community levels. Data were collected among 75 participants (ages 5 to 59 y) from 28 households in three Ecuadorian Shuar communities characterized by subsistence-based lifestyles and high pathogen burden, but experiencing rapid market integration. As predicted, we found strong negative associations between PDS and biomarkers of immune response to viral/bacterial infection, and weaker associations between PDS and measures of macroparasite infection, apparently mediated by market integration-related differences. We provide support for the previously untested hypothesis that PDS is negatively associated with infection, and document variation in PDS indicative of calibration to local socioeconomic conditions. More broadly, findings highlight the importance of evolved psychological mechanisms in human health outcomes.

Disgust Sensitivity Among Women During the COVID-19 Outbreak

“…On the one hand, stronger emotions, which should protect against infections, correlated with better health. Higher disgust sensitivity was associated with fewer recent infections (Stevenson et al, 2009), lower infection burden (e.g., Gassen et al, 2018;Cepon-Robins et al, 2021), and pathogen avoidance behaviors were more frequently reported by healthy people (Prokop and Fančovičová, 2011). Moreover, a childhood illness and, to a lesser extent, a recent illness were associated with perceived infectability (Makhanova et al, in press).…”

“…For example, no effect of illness recency on attentional bias for disfigured faces was found in a replication of Miller and Maner's (2011) study (Tybur et al, 2020). It has been also shown that decreased ability to avoid infections downregulates rather than upregulates disgust (Bartres and Perrett, 2020;Cepon-Robins et al, 2021).…”

“…It has been suggested that pathogen avoidance motivation may promote health and longevity by allowing for lower levels of non-targeted inflammation without an increase in infection risk (Gassen et al, 2018). Hence, disgust may be one mechanism that helps people effectively manage such threats, where highly disease-avoidant people bear lower infection costs (e.g., Gassen et al, 2018;Cepon-Robins et al, 2021).…”

Unrealistic Optimism and Risk for COVID-19 Disease

“…This may have exacerbated the lack of preparedness of the United States for the SARS-CoV-2 virus pandemic at the country, state, and individual levels (Katzmarzyk et al, 2020). Furthermore, cultural differences in tightnesslooseness (Gelfand et al, 2021), as well as potential regional biological differences reflected in motivation to avoid infectious diseases (Skolnick and Dzokoto, 2013;Gassen et al, 2018;Cepon-Robins et al, 2021;Krams et al, 2021), may also influence certain countries' tendencies to invest heavily in pandemic preparedness.…”

The smell of prejudice. Disgust, sense of smell and social attitudes. An evolutionary perspective

“…Moreover, it is not clear what motivates interindividual variability in disgust sensitivity (Tybur et al, 2018). However, recent studies suggest a negative relationship between disgust sensitivity and pathogen exposure (Cepon-Robins et al, 2021), thus corroborating the idea that disgust evolved as a disease avoidance mechanism. Curtis and Biran (2001) identified some disgust elicitors that seem universal, including body odors.…”