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A behavioural immune system perspective on disgust and social prejudice

Nature Reviews Psychology volume 2, pages 676–687 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Infectious disease threatens humans across cultures and time periods. The mental mechanisms that have evolved to navigate this threat can have non-intuitive consequences for phenomena such as political ideology and social prejudice. In this Review, we describe these mental mechanisms (together called the behavioural immune system), review the evidence that they contribute to prejudice and critically evaluate evidence for two proposed underlying principles: that the behavioural immune system functions according to a ‘better safe than sorry’ bias (the smoke detector principle) and generates prejudice towards people with atypical features. We find that evidence supports both features. However, most evidence for the smoke detector principle remains indirect, and only specific types of atypicality seem to evoke prejudice. These considerations lead to two priorities for future research. First, research should apply signal detection methods to more directly test whether the behavioural immune system leads to prejudice because of a bias towards false alarms. Second, research should focus on testing the extent to which explanations based on low interpersonal value can account for relations between pathogen-avoidance motivations and prejudice towards groups and individuals associated with norm violations.

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Fig. 1: A process model of the behavioural immune system.
Fig. 2: A signal detection model of pathogen presence estimates.
Fig. 3: An updated process model of the behavioural immune system.

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Acknowledgements

J.M.T. is supported by the European Research Council (ERC-2021-COG NONPHARM 101045225).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Psychology, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Florian van Leeuwen & Bastian Jaeger

  2. Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Joshua M. Tybur

  3. Institute for Brain and Behavior Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Joshua M. Tybur

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  1. Florian van Leeuwen
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  2. Bastian Jaeger
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  3. Joshua M. Tybur
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F.v.L. wrote the first draft. B.J., J.M.T. and F.v.L. revised the manuscript several times.

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van Leeuwen, F., Jaeger, B. & Tybur, J.M. A behavioural immune system perspective on disgust and social prejudice. Nat Rev Psychol 2, 676–687 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-023-00226-4

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