Pathogens, Personality, and Culture Schaller, Mark; Murray, Damian R
Journal of personality and social psychology,
07/2008, Letnik:
95, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Previous research has documented cross-cultural differences in personality traits, but the origins of those differences remain unknown. The authors investigate the possibility that these cultural ...differences can be traced, in part, to regional differences in the prevalence in infectious diseases. Three specific hypotheses are deduced, predicting negative relationships between disease prevalence and (a) unrestricted sociosexuality, (b) extraversion, and (c) openness to experience. These hypotheses were tested empirically with methods that employed epidemiological atlases in conjunction with personality data collected from individuals in dozens of countries worldwide. Results were consistent with all three hypotheses: In regions that have historically suffered from high levels of infectious diseases, people report lower mean levels of sociosexuality, extraversion, and openness. Alternative explanations are addressed, and possible underlying mechanisms are discussed.
According to a "parasite stress" hypothesis, authoritarian governments are more likely to emerge in regions characterized by a high prevalence of disease-causing pathogens. Recent cross-national ...evidence is consistent with this hypothesis, but there are inferential limitations associated with that evidence. We report two studies that address some of these limitations, and provide further tests of the hypothesis. Study 1 revealed that parasite prevalence strongly predicted cross-national differences on measures assessing individuals' authoritarian personalities, and this effect statistically mediated the relationship between parasite prevalence and authoritarian governance. The mediation result is inconsistent with an alternative explanation for previous findings. To address further limitations associated with cross-national comparisons, Study 2 tested the parasite stress hypothesis on a sample of traditional small-scale societies (the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample). Results revealed that parasite prevalence predicted measures of authoritarian governance, and did so even when statistically controlling for other threats to human welfare. (One additional threat-famine-also uniquely predicted authoritarianism.) Together, these results further substantiate the parasite stress hypothesis of authoritarianism, and suggest that societal differences in authoritarian governance result, in part, from cultural differences in individuals' authoritarian personalities.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Regional differences in disease prevalence are associated with a wide array of cross-cultural differences. However, the complex relationships among culture, disease, and other ecological variables ...remain underinvestigated. Future research into the origins of cultural differences will benefit from the availability of a numerical index identifying the extent to which infectious diseases have been historically prevalent within regions defined by geopolitical borders. This article introduces such an index. This index is based on disease prevalence data obtained from old epidemiological atlases and is calculated for 230 geopolitical regions (mostly nations) around the world.
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.
Strategic perspectives on moral and political attitudes suggest that people often tailor such attitudes to serve the current or future needs of themselves and their families. Given the critical ...importance of parenting in human life, we were interested in whether parenthood was associated with individual differences in political and moral attitudes, and whether parenthood and parenting motivation might partly explain age differences in these attitudes. Given that a key element of social conservatism is vigilance towards uncertainty and threat and, given that parenting is often associated with risk aversion, we predicted that parents (and those high in parenting motivation) would be more morally vigilant and more socially conservative. Across four studies including over 1500 participants, both objective parenthood and subjective parenting motivation independently predicted both outcomes. Further analyses revealed that both parenthood and parenting motivation mediated the relationships between age and both social conservatism and moral vigilance.
What are the origins of cultural differences in conformity? The authors deduce the hypothesis that these cultural differences may reflect historical variability in the prevalence of disease-causing ...pathogens: Where pathogens were more prevalent, there were likely to emerge cultural norms promoting greater conformity. The authors conducted four tests of this hypothesis, using countries as units of analysis. Results support the pathogen prevalence hypothesis. Pathogen prevalence positively predicts cultural differences in effect sizes that emerge from behavioral conformity experiments (r = .49, n = 17) and in the percentage of the population who prioritize obedience (r = .48, n = 83). Pathogen prevalence also negatively predicted two indicators of tolerance for nonconformity: within-country dispositional variability (r = —.48, n = 33) and the percentage of the population who are left-handed (r = —.73, n = 20). Additional analyses address plausible alternative causal explanations. Discussion focuses on plausible underlying mechanisms (e.g., genetic, developmental, cognitive).
Pathogenic diseases impose selection pressures on the social behaviour of host populations. In humans (Homo sapiens), many psychological phenomena appear to serve an antipathogen defence function. ...One broad implication is the existence of cross-cultural differences in human cognition and behaviour contingent upon the relative presence of pathogens in the local ecology. We focus specifically on one fundamental cultural variable: differences in individualistic versus collectivist values. We suggest that specific behavioural manifestations of collectivism (e.g. ethnocentrism, conformity) can inhibit the transmission of pathogens; and so we hypothesize that collectivism (compared with individualism) will more often characterize cultures in regions that have historically had higher prevalence of pathogens. Drawing on epidemiological data and the findings of worldwide cross-national surveys of individualism/collectivism, our results support this hypothesis: the regional prevalence of pathogens has a strong positive correlation with cultural indicators of collectivism and a strong negative correlation with individualism. The correlations remain significant even when controlling for potential confounding variables. These results help to explain the origin of a paradigmatic cross-cultural difference, and reveal previously undocumented consequences of pathogenic diseases on the variable nature of human societies.
Among the most consistent sex differences to emerge from personality research is that women score higher than men on the Big Five personality trait Neuroticism. However, there are few functionally ...coherent explanations for this sex difference. The current studies tested whether this sex difference is due, in part, to variation in physical capital. Two preregistered studies (total N = 878 U.S. students) found that sex differences in the anxiety facet of Neuroticism were mediated by variation in physical strength and self-perceived formidability. Study 1 (N = 374) did not find a predicted mediation effect for overall Neuroticism but found a mediation effect for anxiety (the facet of Neuroticism most strongly associated with grip strength). Study 2 (N = 504) predicted and replicated this mediation effect. Further, sex differences in anxiety were serially mediated by grip strength and self-perceived formidability. These findings add to a nascent literature suggesting that differences in physical attributes may partially explain sex differences in personality.
People vary greatly in their desire for, willingness to care for, and emotions toward children. This variation in “parenting motivation” predicts a range of cognition and behavior. Strategic ...perspectives on political attitudes suggest that parenting motivation should be associated with more socially conservative attitudes, since these attitudes prioritize self-protection norms. Across three studies, we found that parenthood mediated age-related increases in social conservatism. Study 1 found that an experimental child interaction prime increased social conservatism in parents but not in nonparents. Study 2 (preregistered, n = 803) found a main effect of the prime, while Study 3 (preregistered, n = 763) found no experimental effect. Study 3 also found that the relationship between parenting motivation and social conservatism was mediated by both sexual attitudes and perceived threats. These findings attest to the important relationship between parenthood and social conservatism but also suggest that “parenting” primes have either inconsistent or trivial implications within online samples.
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