Facial disfigurement is treated like an infectious disease

Ryan, Stephen; Oaten, Megan; Stevenson, Richard J.; Case, Trevor I.

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.04.001

Cited by 138 publications

(155 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The evolutionary importance of disgust as a moderator of behavior, as has been shown in previous research, and its importance in avoiding certain types of contagious diseases support this hypothesis (e.g., Oaten, et al 2009;Park, et al 2003;Ryan, et al 2012). The current study, however, hopes to show how it affects our perceptions of attractiveness specifically as to the best of our knowledge, no studies have previously examined this issue.…”

Section: Hypothesessupporting

confidence: 60%

“…Research has shown that facial disfigurements are seen as less attractive in a potential mate, especially if they resemble a disfigurement associated with a contagious disease as opposed to a "battle" scar (e.g., Houston and Bull 1994;Kurzban and Leary 2001;Ryan, Oaten, Stevenson, and Case 2012). Facial attraction research has also demonstrated that facial disfigurements can impact facial symmetry along with how prototypical a face looks, both of which are factors in how attractive a face is (e.g., Halberstadt and Rhodes 2000;Johnson, Hagel, Franklin, Fink, and Grammer 2001;Penton-Voak et al 2001;Schieb, Gangestead, and Thornhill 1999).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This research provides a foundation for an evolutionary model of disease avoidance and a link between disease avoidance and disgust. Ryan et al (2012) looked for empirical evidence to show that disgust is a moderator of disease avoidance. They showed participants videos of confederates handling props that the participants had to interact with later in the study.…”

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confidence: 99%

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How Disgust Affects Romantic Attraction: the Influence of Moods on Judgments of Attractiveness

Phelan

Edlund

2015

Evolutionary Psychological Science

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Facial attractiveness is an important part of our initial judgments of people. Relatedly, the emotion disgust is one of the most adaptive emotions as it helps keep us away from potentially dangerous objects. The current experiment examined whether or not being disgusted created an avoidance behavior, in the form of lower attractiveness scores, of nondisfigured individuals similar to avoidance behavior towards individuals who are disfigured. Disgust was induced by showing participants a series of disgusting photos prior to making attractiveness ratings of potential mating targets. It was found that individuals who were disgusted rated photos significantly lower than participants who received a neutral mood induction. Potential explanations for this finding are discussed.

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Section: Hypothesessupporting

confidence: 60%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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How Disgust Affects Romantic Attraction: the Influence of Moods on Judgments of Attractiveness

Phelan

Edlund

2015

Evolutionary Psychological Science

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“…the distinctive odour of organic matter being devoured by bacteria, or the symptomatic appearance of a conspecific that is already infected). Like many other animals, people are sensitive to indirect perceptual cues of parasite presence, and strategically avoid contact with objects or people characterized by these cues [21][22][23].…”

Section: Avoidance Of Social Interactions That Pose a Potential Infecmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the social domain, this over-generalization bias contributes to prejudicial attitudes toward people whose physical appearances superficially mimic symptoms of infection, or who just appear anomalous in some way (e.g. individuals who are disfigured, disabled or obese [23,26]). In addition to superficial perceptual cues, people also employ other kinds of information-including group stereotypes and other acquired beliefs-to identify categories of people who might pose a potential infection risk, so as to selectively avoid contact with those people.…”

Section: Avoidance Of Social Interactions That Pose a Potential Infecmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implications of the behavioural immune system for social behaviour and human health in the modern world

Schaller

Murray

Bangerter

2015

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

141

135

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The ‘behavioural immune system’ is composed of mechanisms that evolved as a means of facilitating behaviours that minimized infection risk and enhanced fitness. Recent empirical research on human populations suggests that these mechanisms have unique consequences for many aspects of human sociality—including sexual attitudes, gregariousness, xenophobia, conformity to majority opinion and conservative sociopolitical attitudes. Throughout much of human evolutionary history, these consequences may have had beneficial health implications; but health implications in modern human societies remain unclear. This article summarizes pertinent ways in which modern human societies are similar to and different from the ecologies within which the behavioural immune system evolved. By attending to these similarities and differences, we identify a set of plausible implications—both positive and negative—that the behavioural immune system may have on health outcomes in contemporary human contexts. We discuss both individual-level infection risk and population-level epidemiological outcomes. We also discuss a variety of additional implications, including compliance with public health policies, the adoption of novel therapeutic interventions and actual immunological functioning. Research on the behavioural immune system, and its implications in contemporary human societies, can provide unique insights into relationships between fitness, sociality and health.

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The Behavioral Immune System

Schaller

2015

The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology

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Human psychology is characterized by a motivational system (the “behavioral immune system”) that appears to have evolved as a means of providing prophylactic protection against pathogen infection. This chapter provides an overview of research on the behavioral immune system, describing why it evolved, how it operates, and its many implications—some obvious and some not—for human cognition and human behavior. This overview is presented in the form of 12 “things you need to know” that, collectively, summarize the scope of contemporary research on the behavioral immune system, and provide a foundation for thinking critically about it.

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Facial disfigurement is treated like an infectious disease

Cited by 138 publications

References 24 publications

How Disgust Affects Romantic Attraction: the Influence of Moods on Judgments of Attractiveness

How Disgust Affects Romantic Attraction: the Influence of Moods on Judgments of Attractiveness

Implications of the behavioural immune system for social behaviour and human health in the modern world

The Behavioral Immune System

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