ReviewBehavioral ecology and sociobiology2021
Infection threat shapes our social instincts.
Review in Behavioral ecology and sociobiology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- The complex interplay between risk tolerance and the spread of infectious diseases.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Political Attitudes and Disease Threat: Regional Pathogen Stress Is Associated With Conservative Ideology Only for Older Individuals.Personality & social psychology bulletin · 2024Article
- Racism is not about "race".Scientific reports · 2023Article
- First impressions of a new face are shaped by infection concerns.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2023Article
- Heterogeneous adaptive behavioral responses may increase epidemic burden.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Sociality and disease: behavioral perspectives in ecological and evolutionary immunology.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2022Article
- An analysis of awe evoked by COVID-19 on green purchasing behavior: A dual-path effect of approach-avoidance motivation.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Potential of Endogenous Oxytocin in Endocrine Treatment and Prevention of COVID-19.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2022Review
- Testing the Disgust-Based Mechanism of Homonegative Attitudes in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- How territoriality reduces disease transmission among social insect colonies.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2021Article
- Mitochondria-Microbiota Interaction in Neurodegeneration.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2021Review
- Explainable AI-driven hybrid deep learning framework for accurate skin cancer diagnosis.Digital healthArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We social animals must balance the need to avoid infections with the need to interact with conspecifics. To that end we have evolved, alongside our physiological immune system, a suite of behaviors devised to deal with potentially contagious individuals. Focusing mostly on humans, the current review describes the design and biological innards of this behavioral immune system, laying out how infection threat shapes sociality and sociality shapes infection threat. The paper shows how the danger of contagion is detected and posted to the brain; how it affects individuals' mate choice and sex life; why it strengthens ties within groups but severs those between them, leading to hostility toward anyone who looks, smells, or behaves unusually; and how it permeates the foundation of our moral and political views. This system was already in place when agriculture and animal domestication set off a massive increase in our population density, personal connections, and interaction with other species, amplifying enormously the spread of disease. Alas, pandemics such as COVID-19 not only are a disaster for public health, but, by rousing millions of behavioral immune systems, could prove a threat to harmonious cohabitation too.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.