Noncompliance With Safety Guidelines as a Free-Riding Strategy: An Evolutionary Game-Theoretic Approach to Cooperation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Yong, Jose C.; Choy, Bryan K. C.

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.646892

Cited by 50 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 67 publications

(96 reference statements)

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“…Current evidence suggests that the predominant preference for male over female political leaders could be a byproduct of the ancestral preference for physically formidable allies (Murray and Carroll, 2020). Furthermore, other aspects of the dominant male leader can also be relevant to the ingroup, such as better coordination, negotiation, and efficiency at suppressing free-riding (Lukaszewski et al, 2016; see also Varella et al, 2021;Yong and Choy, 2021).…”

Section: Sexually Dimorphic Leadership Specialization Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Pandemic Leadership: Sex Differences and Their Evolutionary–Developmental Origins

Luoto

Varella

2021

Front. Psychol.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global societal, economic, and social upheaval unseen in living memory. There have been substantial cross-national differences in the kinds of policies implemented by political decision-makers to prevent the spread of the virus, to test the population, and to manage infected patients. Among other factors, these policies vary with politicians’ sex: early findings indicate that, on average, female leaders seem more focused on minimizing direct human suffering caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, while male leaders implement riskier short-term decisions, possibly aiming to minimize economic disruptions. These sex differences are consistent with broader findings in psychology, reflecting women’s stronger empathy, higher pathogen disgust, health concern, care-taking orientation, and dislike for the suffering of other people—as well as men’s higher risk-taking, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, and focus on financial indicators of success and status. This review article contextualizes sex differences in pandemic leadership in an evolutionary framework. Evolution by natural selection is the only known process in nature that organizes organisms into higher degrees of functional order, or counteracts the unavoidable disorder that would otherwise ensue, and is therefore essential for explaining the origins of human sex differences. Differential sexual selection and parental investment between males and females, together with the sexual differentiation of the mammalian brain, drive sex differences in cognition and behavioral dispositions, underlying men’s and women’s leadership styles and decision-making during a global pandemic. According to the sexually dimorphic leadership specialization hypothesis, general psychobehavioral sex differences have been exapted during human evolution to create sexually dimorphic leadership styles. They may be facultatively co-opted by societies and/or followers when facing different kinds of ecological and/or sociopolitical threats, such as disease outbreaks or intergroup aggression. Early evidence indicates that against the invisible viral foe that can bring nations to their knees, the strategic circumspection of empathic feminine health “worriers” may bring more effective and humanitarian outcomes than the devil-may-care incaution of masculine risk-taking “warriors”.

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Section: Sexually Dimorphic Leadership Specialization Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Pandemic Leadership: Sex Differences and Their Evolutionary–Developmental Origins

Luoto

Varella

2021

Front. Psychol.

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“…This conflict between affiliative needs and disease avoidance can, again, be thought of as representing an adaptive metaproblem (Al-Shawaf, 2016;Rantala et al, 2019;Varella et al, 2021). Furthermore, highrisk individuals may also be employing a "free-riding" strategy, enjoying the safety benefits of others' cautiousness while not adjusting their behavior commensurate with their high risk for morbidity and mortality (Yong and Choy, 2021). In doing so, these individuals might be able to achieve other fitness goals without drastically increasing their already elevated risk.…”

Section: Maladaptive Optimismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unrealistic Optimism and Risk for COVID-19 Disease

et al. 2021

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Risk perception and consequently engagement in behaviors to avoid illness often do not match actual risk of infection, morbidity, and mortality. Unrealistic optimism occurs when individuals falsely believe that their personal outcomes will be more favorable than others' in the same risk category. Natural selection could favor overconfidence if its benefits, such as psychological resilience, outweigh its costs. However, just because optimism biases may have offered fitness advantages in our evolutionary past does not mean that they are always optimal. The current project examined relationships among personal risk for severe COVID-19, risk perceptions, and preventative behaviors. We predicted that those with higher risk of severe COVID-19 would exhibit unrealistic optimism and behave in ways inconsistent with their elevated risk of morbidity and mortality. Clinical risk scores for severe COVID-19 were calculated and compared with COVID-19 threat appraisal, compliance with shelter-in-place orders (March 13–May 22, 2020) and travel restrictions, compliance with public health recommendations, and potential covariates like self-rated knowledge about COVID-19 in a robust dataset including 492 participants from McLennan County, TX, USA. While those with high clinical risk acknowledged their greater likelihood of experiencing severe illness if infected, they actually reported lower perceived likelihood of becoming infected in the first place. While it is possible that those with higher clinical risk scores truly are less likely to become infected, the pattern and significance of these results held after controlling for possible occupational exposure, household size, and other factors related to infection probability. Higher clinical risk also predicted more recent travel within Texas and lower distress during the pandemic (i.e., feeling less stressed, depressed, and helpless). Additional behavioral data suggested that those with higher clinical risk scores did not generally behave differently than those with lower scores during the shelter-in-place order. While unrealistic optimism may provide some short-term psychological benefits, it could be dangerous due to improper assessment of hazardous situations; inferring that optimism bias has evolutionary origins does not mean that unrealistic optimism is “optimal” in every situation. This may be especially true when individuals face novel sources (or scales) of risk, such as a global pandemic.

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“…Humans have an evolved tendency to punish social-norm breakers (Krebs, 2008). For an interesting discussion about non-compliance with safety measures as a free-riding strategy and psychological mechanisms aimed at curbing free riding in context of COVID-19 pandemic, see Yong and Choy (2021). We predicted this tendency to punish non-adherence to preventive guidelines would be even more pronounced in situations such as this, where breaking certain rules designed to prevent the spread of a disease directly puts other members of the group in danger.…”

Section: Inclination To Punish Those Who Do Not Adhere To Covid-19 Preventive Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Islanders Have a More Reactive Behavioral Immune System? Social Cognitions and Preferred Interpersonal Distances During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021

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Insular populations have traditionally drawn a lot of attention from epidemiologists as they provide important insights regarding transmission of infectious diseases and propagation of epidemics. There are numerous historical instances where isolated populations showed high morbidity once a new virus entered the population. Building upon that and recent findings that the activation of the behavioral immune system (BIS) depends both upon one’s vulnerability and environmental context, we predicted that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, place of residence (island vs. mainland) explains a significant proportion of variance in preferred interpersonal distances, animosity toward strangers, and willingness to punish those who do not adhere to COVID-19 preventive measures. With 48 populated islands, Croatia provides a fruitful testing ground for this prediction. We also opted to explore relations among BIS-related variables (pathogen disgust, germ aversion, and perceived infectability) and social cognitions in a more natural context than has previously been done. The study was conducted online, on Croatian residents, during April and May 2020. As expected, the BIS variables contributed significantly to preferred interpersonal distances, negative emotions toward strangers, and willingness to punish those who do not adhere to COVID-19 preventive measures. Furthermore, our results showed that geographical location explained a significant amount of variance in preferred social (but not personal and intimate) distances and negative emotions toward foreigners. As Croatian islands are extremely frequent travel destinations, these differences between mainlanders and islanders cannot be explained by the lack of exposure to foreigners. Additionally, we found that scores on preferred interpersonal distances, pathogen disgust, and germ aversion were significantly higher compared to those obtained in Croatian samples before the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, men scored higher in perceived infectability than before the COVID-19 pandemic, and women did not, which reflects the objectively higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 for men than for women. Taken together, our results support the notion that BIS is a highly adaptive and context-dependent response system, likely more reactive in more susceptible individuals.

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Noncompliance With Safety Guidelines as a Free-Riding Strategy: An Evolutionary Game-Theoretic Approach to Cooperation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cited by 50 publications

References 67 publications

Pandemic Leadership: Sex Differences and Their Evolutionary–Developmental Origins

Pandemic Leadership: Sex Differences and Their Evolutionary–Developmental Origins

Unrealistic Optimism and Risk for COVID-19 Disease

Do Islanders Have a More Reactive Behavioral Immune System? Social Cognitions and Preferred Interpersonal Distances During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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