Discuss the main characteristic features of modern life and their implications for human health and behaviour
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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.
Keywords: behavioural immune system, infection, sociality, conformity, xenophobia, health
1. INTRODUCTION
For many millions of years, parasites—and the infectious diseases that they cause—have imposed substantial selection pressures on populations from which contemporary humans are descended. As a consequence, sophisticated defences against infection evolved. The most obvious adaptations of this sort are immunological mechanisms that promote resistance to infection (e.g. the mechanisms that define humans' innate and adaptive immune systems). Less obvious perhaps are strategies of behavioural defence against infection.
There exist many behavioural strategies of anti-parasite defence, observed across a wide range of species ([1–6]; see also Meunier [7]). These strategies include specific behavioural tendencies that are stimulated by existing infections and that help to promote recovery from those infections (e.g. inhibition of motor activity, ingestion of medicinal plants [8–10]). In addition, many animals also engage in prophylactic behaviours that minimize the risk of infection in the first place. Some of these behaviours might be considered reactive, in the sense that they are avoidant responses to infectious entities in the immediate perceptual environment—such as when social insects abandon a nest after a parasite outbreak, bullfrog tadpoles avoid swimming near other tadpoles infected with intestinal parasites and chimpanzees avoid touching fellow chimpanzees stricken by polio [2,11,12]. Other behavioural strategies are more proactive. Even under conditions in which there is no perceptual evidence of infectious agents in the immediate environment, organisms may engage in behaviours that proactively manage a latent infection risk, thereby reducing the likelihood that this latent risk becomes manifest in ways that would require reactive avoidance. Examples include ants' use of antibiotic resins to line their nests [13] and, as we discuss in greater detail below, humans' efforts to maintain existing cultural norms [14]. Collectively, these strategies have been likened to a kind of ‘social immune system’ [2] or ‘behavioural immune system’ [5,15,16].
We focus here on human behaviour. Within the psychological sciences especially, there has been a recent surge of research on prophylactic behavioural defences against infectious diseases. This burgeoning body of research has yielded novel insights not only about human behavioural decision-making but also about affective and cognitive phenomena (e.g. the experience of disgust [17–19]) that facilitate or inhibit specific behavioural responses. We limit our focus to implications pertaining directly to human sociality—attitudes and behavioural tendencies that govern a person's responses to and interactions with other people—and on the further implications that these attitudes may have for health outcomes in contemporary human populations.
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hey lisa
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.
Keywords: behavioural immune system, infection, sociality, conformity, xenophobia, health
1. INTRODUCTION
For many millions of years, parasites—and the infectious diseases that they cause—have imposed substantial selection pressures on populations from which contemporary humans are descended. As a consequence, sophisticated defences against infection evolved. The most obvious adaptations of this sort are immunological mechanisms that promote resistance to infection (e.g. the mechanisms that define humans' innate and adaptive immune systems). Less obvious perhaps are strategies of behavioural defence against infection.
There exist many behavioural strategies of anti-parasite defence, observed across a wide range of species ([1–6]; see also Meunier [7]). These strategies include specific behavioural tendencies that are stimulated by existing infections and that help to promote recovery from those infections (e.g. inhibition of motor activity, ingestion of medicinal plants [8–10]). In addition, many animals also engage in prophylactic behaviours that minimize the risk of infection in the first place. Some of these behaviours might be considered reactive, in the sense that they are avoidant responses to infectious entities in the immediate perceptual environment—such as when social insects abandon a nest after a parasite outbreak, bullfrog tadpoles avoid swimming near other tadpoles infected with intestinal parasites and chimpanzees avoid touching fellow chimpanzees stricken by polio [2,11,12]. Other behavioural strategies are more proactive. Even under conditions in which there is no perceptual evidence of infectious agents in the immediate environment, organisms may engage in behaviours that proactively manage a latent infection risk, thereby reducing the likelihood that this latent risk becomes manifest in ways that would require reactive avoidance. Examples include ants' use of antibiotic resins to line their nests [13] and, as we discuss in greater detail below, humans' efforts to maintain existing cultural norms [14]. Collectively, these strategies have been likened to a kind of ‘social immune system’ [2] or ‘behavioural immune system’ [5,15,16].
We focus here on human behaviour. Within the psychological sciences especially, there has been a recent surge of research on prophylactic behavioural defences against infectious diseases. This burgeoning body of research has yielded novel insights not only about human behavioural decision-making but also about affective and cognitive phenomena (e.g. the experience of disgust [17–19]) that facilitate or inhibit specific behavioural responses. We limit our focus to implications pertaining directly to human sociality—attitudes and behavioural tendencies that govern a person's responses to and interactions with other people—and on the further implications that these attitudes may have for health outcomes in contemporary human populations.