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I Got it. Perceived Infectability and Germ Aversion after Covid-19 Infection
OBJECTIVE: The COVID-19 pandemic has offered a unique opportunity to test evolutionary hypotheses on the functionality of the behavioral immune system. The aim of the present study was to ascertain if a previous infection with COVID-19 was associated with increased levels of perceived infectability...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Giovanni Fioriti Editore srl
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10544242/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37791095 http://dx.doi.org/10.36131/cnfioritieditore20230413 |
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author | Troisi, Alfonso Carola, Valeria Nanni, Roberta Croce |
author_facet | Troisi, Alfonso Carola, Valeria Nanni, Roberta Croce |
author_sort | Troisi, Alfonso |
collection | PubMed |
description | OBJECTIVE: The COVID-19 pandemic has offered a unique opportunity to test evolutionary hypotheses on the functionality of the behavioral immune system. The aim of the present study was to ascertain if a previous infection with COVID-19 was associated with increased levels of perceived infectability and germ aversion. Based on the calibration hypothesis, we predicted that the activation of the behavioral immune system was greater in those participants who had been infected compared to those who reported no previous COVID-19 infection. METHOD: The sample included 2072 participants who completed an online survey between March 1 and April 10, 2022 when the Italian population was facing the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. To measure the activation of the behavioral immune system, we used the Perceived Vulnerability to Disease (PVD) scale. RESULTS: Perceived infectability was significantly greater in those participants who had been infected compared to those who reported no previous COVID-19 infection but there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of germ aversion. Conclusions Overall, our findings suggest that individual differences in the activation of the behavioral immune system were marginally affected by a personal history of COVID-19 infection. A possible explanation is that the environmental sensitivity of the behavioral immune system is tuned more on chronic disease threat (i.e., ecologies with higher pathogen load) than on situational disease threat (e.g., a pandemic or disease outbreak like the COVID-19 pandemic). |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10544242 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Giovanni Fioriti Editore srl |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105442422023-10-03 I Got it. Perceived Infectability and Germ Aversion after Covid-19 Infection Troisi, Alfonso Carola, Valeria Nanni, Roberta Croce Clin Neuropsychiatry Research Paper OBJECTIVE: The COVID-19 pandemic has offered a unique opportunity to test evolutionary hypotheses on the functionality of the behavioral immune system. The aim of the present study was to ascertain if a previous infection with COVID-19 was associated with increased levels of perceived infectability and germ aversion. Based on the calibration hypothesis, we predicted that the activation of the behavioral immune system was greater in those participants who had been infected compared to those who reported no previous COVID-19 infection. METHOD: The sample included 2072 participants who completed an online survey between March 1 and April 10, 2022 when the Italian population was facing the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. To measure the activation of the behavioral immune system, we used the Perceived Vulnerability to Disease (PVD) scale. RESULTS: Perceived infectability was significantly greater in those participants who had been infected compared to those who reported no previous COVID-19 infection but there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of germ aversion. Conclusions Overall, our findings suggest that individual differences in the activation of the behavioral immune system were marginally affected by a personal history of COVID-19 infection. A possible explanation is that the environmental sensitivity of the behavioral immune system is tuned more on chronic disease threat (i.e., ecologies with higher pathogen load) than on situational disease threat (e.g., a pandemic or disease outbreak like the COVID-19 pandemic). Giovanni Fioriti Editore srl 2023-08 /pmc/articles/PMC10544242/ /pubmed/37791095 http://dx.doi.org/10.36131/cnfioritieditore20230413 Text en © 2023 Giovanni Fioriti Editore s.r.l. This is an open access article. Distribution and reproduction are permitted in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Paper Troisi, Alfonso Carola, Valeria Nanni, Roberta Croce I Got it. Perceived Infectability and Germ Aversion after Covid-19 Infection |
title | I Got it. Perceived Infectability and Germ Aversion after Covid-19 Infection |
title_full | I Got it. Perceived Infectability and Germ Aversion after Covid-19 Infection |
title_fullStr | I Got it. Perceived Infectability and Germ Aversion after Covid-19 Infection |
title_full_unstemmed | I Got it. Perceived Infectability and Germ Aversion after Covid-19 Infection |
title_short | I Got it. Perceived Infectability and Germ Aversion after Covid-19 Infection |
title_sort | i got it. perceived infectability and germ aversion after covid-19 infection |
topic | Research Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10544242/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37791095 http://dx.doi.org/10.36131/cnfioritieditore20230413 |
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