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Do Islanders Have a More Reactive Behavioral Immune System? Social Cognitions and Preferred Interpersonal Distances During the COVID-19 Pandemic
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 viru...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2021
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8120299/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33995203 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647586 |
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author | Hromatko, Ivana Grus, Andrea Kolđeraj, Gabrijela |
author_facet | Hromatko, Ivana Grus, Andrea Kolđeraj, Gabrijela |
author_sort | Hromatko, Ivana |
collection | PubMed |
description | 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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8120299 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-81202992021-05-15 Do Islanders Have a More Reactive Behavioral Immune System? Social Cognitions and Preferred Interpersonal Distances During the COVID-19 Pandemic Hromatko, Ivana Grus, Andrea Kolđeraj, Gabrijela Front Psychol Psychology 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. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-04-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8120299/ /pubmed/33995203 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647586 Text en Copyright © 2021 Hromatko, Grus and Kolđeraj. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Hromatko, Ivana Grus, Andrea Kolđeraj, Gabrijela Do Islanders Have a More Reactive Behavioral Immune System? Social Cognitions and Preferred Interpersonal Distances During the COVID-19 Pandemic |
title | Do Islanders Have a More Reactive Behavioral Immune System? Social Cognitions and Preferred Interpersonal Distances During the COVID-19 Pandemic |
title_full | Do Islanders Have a More Reactive Behavioral Immune System? Social Cognitions and Preferred Interpersonal Distances During the COVID-19 Pandemic |
title_fullStr | Do Islanders Have a More Reactive Behavioral Immune System? Social Cognitions and Preferred Interpersonal Distances During the COVID-19 Pandemic |
title_full_unstemmed | Do Islanders Have a More Reactive Behavioral Immune System? Social Cognitions and Preferred Interpersonal Distances During the COVID-19 Pandemic |
title_short | Do Islanders Have a More Reactive Behavioral Immune System? Social Cognitions and Preferred Interpersonal Distances During the COVID-19 Pandemic |
title_sort | do islanders have a more reactive behavioral immune system? social cognitions and preferred interpersonal distances during the covid-19 pandemic |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8120299/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33995203 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647586 |
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