Parasite stress and pathogen avoidance relate to
distinct dimensions of political ideology across
30 nations
Joshua M. Tybur
a,1
, Yoel Inbar
b
, Lene Aarøe
c
, Pat Barclay
d
, Fiona Kate Barlow
e
, Mícheál de Barra
f,g
, D. Vaughn Becker
h
,
Leah Borovoi
i
, Incheol Choi
j
, Jong An Choi
k
, Nathan S. Consedine
l
, Alan Conway
m
, Jane Rebecca Conway
n
,
Paul Conway
o,p
, Vera Cubela Adoric
q
, Dilara Ekin Demirci
r
, Ana María Fernández
s
, Diogo Conque Seco Ferreira
t
,
Keiko Ishii
u
, Ivana Jakši
c
v
, Tingting Ji
a
, Florian van Leeuwen
c
, David M. G. Lewis
w
, Norman P. Li
x
, Jason C. McIntyre
y
,
Sumitava Mukherjee
z
, Justin H. Park
aa
, Boguslaw Pawlowski
bb
, Michael Bang Petersen
c
, David Pizarro
cc
,
Gerasimos Prodromitis
dd
, Pavol Prokop
ee,ff
, Markus J. Rantala
gg,hh
, Lisa M. Reynolds
l
, Bonifacio Sandin
ii
, Baris
¸
Sevi
r
,
Delphine De Smet
jj
, Narayanan Srinivasan
kk
, Shruti Tewari
kk
, Cameron Wilson
d
, Jose C. Yong
x
, and Iris Že
zelj
ll
a
Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1081BT, The Netherlands;
b
Department of Psychology,
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M1C 1A4;
c
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus 8000 C, Denmark;
d
Department
of Psychology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada N1G 2W1;
e
School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, QLD 4072, Australia;
f
Institute of
Applied Health Sciences, College of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB25 2ZD, United Kingdom;
g
Center for the Study of
Cultural Evolution, Stockholm University, 114 18 Stockholm, Sweden;
h
Human Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, Mesa, AZ 85212;
i
Department
of Psychology and Education, The Open University, Raanana 4353701, Israel;
j
Department of Psychology, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, South
Korea;
k
Center for Happiness Studies, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, South Korea;
l
Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, The University of
Auckland, Auckland 92019, New Zealand;
m
School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland;
n
Institute of
Psychiatry, Psychology, & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom;
o
Department of Psychology, Florida State University,
Tallahassee, FL 32304;
p
Department of Psychology, University of Cologne, 50931 Cologne, Germany;
q
Department of Psychology, University of Zadar, 23000
Zadar, Croatia;
r
Department of Psychology, Bilkent University, Bilkent, Ankara 06800, Turkey;
s
Escuela de Psicología, Universidad de Santiago de Chile,
9170197 Santiago, Chile;
t
Department of Psychology, Universidade Federal de Sergipe, 49100-000 Sergipe, Brazil;
u
Department of Psychology, Kobe
University, Kobe 657-8501, Japan;
v
Institute for Educational Research, Belgrade University, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia;
w
School of Psychology and Exercise
Science, Murdo ch University, WA 6150, Australia;
x
School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, Singapore 178903;
y
Institute of Psychology,
Health, and Society, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GL, United Kingdom;
z
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380015, India;
aa
School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TU, United Kingdom;
bb
Department of Human Biology, University of Wroclaw,
50-138, Wroclaw, Poland;
cc
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853;
dd
Department of Psychology, Panteion University of Social and
Political Sciences, 176 71, Athens, Greece;
ee
Department of Biology, Trnava University, 918 43 Trnava, Slovakia;
ff
Institute of Zoology, Slovak Academy of
Sciences, 845 06 Bratislava, Slovakia;
gg
Turku Brain and Mind Center, University of Turku, 20014 Turku, Finland;
hh
Department of Biology, University of
Turku, 20014 Turku, Finland;
ii
Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, 28040 Madrid, Spain;
jj
Department of Interdisciplinary
Study of Law, Private Law, and Business Law, Ghent University, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium;
kk
Centre of Behavioural & Cognitive Sciences, University of
Allahabad, Allahabad 211002, India; and
ll
Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade University, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
Edited by Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved September 6, 2016 (received for review May 9, 2016)
People who are more avoidant of pathogens are more politically
conservative, as are nations with greater parasite stress. In the current
research, we test two prominent hypotheses that have been pro-
posed as explanations for these relationships. The first, which is an
intragroup account, holds that these relationships between patho-
gens and politics are based on motivations to adhere to local norms,
which are sometimes shaped by cultural evolution to have pathogen-
neutralizing properties. The second, which is an intergroup account,
holds that these same relationships are based on motivations to
avoid contact with outgroups, who might pose greater infectious
disease threats than ingroup members. Results from a study surveying
11,501 participants across 30 nations are more con sistent with the
intragroup account than with the intergroup account. National
parasite stress relates to traditionalism (an aspect of conservatism
especially related to adherence to group norms) but not to social
dominance orientation (SDO; an aspect of conservatism especially
related to endorsements of intergroup barriers and negativity to-
ward ethnic and racial outgroups). Further, individual differences in
pathogen-avoidance motives (i.e., disgust sensitivity) relate more
strongly to traditionalism than to SDO within the 30 nations.
political ideology
|
pathogens
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disgust
|
culture
|
evolutionary psychology
T
he costs imposed by pathogens on their hosts have spurred
the evolution of complex antipathogen defenses, many of
which are behavioral (1, 2). In humans, such defenses range from
the proximate avoidance of pathogen cues to the execution of
complex rituals, often with far-reaching consequences (3). At the
individual level, functionally specialized psychological mechanisms
detect pathogen cues and motivate avoidance of physical contact
with pathogens [e.g., via the emotion of disgust (4)]. These
mechanisms, which have been collectively referred to as the behavioral
immune system, influence, among other things, mate preferences (5,
6), dietary preferences (7), and person perception (8) (summarized in
Significance
Pathogens, and antipathogen behavioral strategies, affect myriad
aspects of human behavior. Recent findings suggest that anti-
pathogen strategies relate to political attitudes, with more
ideologically conservative individuals reporting more disgust
toward pathogen cues, and with higher parasite stress nations
being, on average, more conservative. However, no research has
yet adjudicated between two theoretical accounts proposed to
explain these relationships between pathogens and politics. We
find that national parasite stress and individual disgust sensi-
tivity relate more strongly to adherence to traditional norms
than they relate to support for barriers between social groups.
These results suggest that the relationship between patho-
gens and politics reflects intragroup motivations more than
intergroup motivations.
Author contributions: J.M.T. and Y.I. designed research; J.M.T., Y.I., L.A., P.B., F.K.B., M.d.B.,
D.V.B., L.B., I.C., J.A.C., N.S.C., A.C., J.R.C., P.C., V.C.A., D.E.D., A.M.F., D.C.S.F., K.I., I.J., T.J.,
F.v.L., D.M.G.L., N.P.L., J.C.M., S.M., J.H.P., B.P., M.B.P., D .P., G.P., P.P., M.J.R., L.M.R.,
B. Sandin, B. Sevi, D.D.S., N.S., S.T., C.W., J.C.Y., and I.Ž. performed research; J.M.T.
analyzed data; and J.M.T. and Y.I. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
1
To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: j.m.tybur@vu.nl.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.
1073/pnas.1607398113/-/DCSupplemental.
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ref. 9). At the cultural level, many rules and rituals putatively
function to mitigate infection risk, including those concerning food
preparation and consumption (e.g., 10, 11), coughing and sneezing,
and the use of a particular hand in ablutions (and little else).
Some of the most provocative findings in the behavioral im-
mune system literature suggest that political attitudes are influ-
enced both by individual motivations to avoid pathogens and by
the presence of pathogens within an ecology. At the individual
level, the degree to which people are disgusted by pathogen cues
and wary of infection-risky situations relates to a number of po-
litically relevant variables, including political party preference,
openness to experience, and collectivism (summarized in ref. 12).
At the cultural level, nations with greater infectious disease burdens
(i.e., parasite stress) are governed by more authoritarian regimes
and are more religious, more collectivistic, and less open to expe-
rience (13–17), all of which are hallmarks of conservative ideology.
Two distinct hypotheses, one of which is fundamentally an intra-
group account and one of which is fundamentally an intergroup
account, have been advanced to explain these empirical patterns
(13, 18, 19). The first, which we refer to as a traditional norms
account, is based on the assumption that some local rules and rituals
(e.g., how foods are prepared and stored, which meats are accept-
able, which hand one eats with) evolve culturally to neutralize local
pathogen threats. This intragroup account suggests that departures
from traditional norms increase individuals’ risk of infection, so
more pathogen-avoidant individuals favor ideological positions that
encourage adherence to traditional values (11, 20, 21).
The second hypothesis, which we refer to as an outgroup-
avoidance account, is based on the assumption that individuals
develop greater resistance to locally prevalent pathogens than to
pathogens endemic to foreign ecologies, perhaps even those
ecologies close enough to reach by foot (14, 16). This intergroup
account holds that contact with outgroup members (who carry
pathogens that individuals might have less immunity against)
is more likely to result in infectious disease than is contact with
ingroup members. Consequently, more pathogen-avoidant indi-
viduals favor ideological positions that minimize intergro up
pathogen transmission.
Which of these two hypotheses better explains the relationship
between the behavioral immune system and ideology? Given that
conservatism is characterized both by stronger preferences for
ethnic, racial, and national ingroups (vs. outgroups) and by greater
adherence to traditional cultural norms (22), existing data have
been interpreted as supporting both hypotheses. Of course, both
accounts could be correct: Both intergroup and intragroup moti-
vations could underlie the observed relationships between patho-
gens and politics. However, no work has yet aimed to generate
and test competing predictions derived from these two hypotheses.
We aim to fill this gap here. To do so, we depart from standard
practice in this area, which has interpreted several different con-
structs as reflecting a single dimension of ideology. For example,
a recent meta-analysis of the relationship between the behavioral
immune system and conservatism treated diverse constructs—in-
cluding right-wing authoritarianism, collectivism, religiosity, and
social dominance orientation (SDO)—as interchangeable mani-
festations of social conservatism (12). In the current investigation,
we consider how the above-described intragroup and intergroup
accountscanbeusedtomakedistinctpredictionsregardingthe
relationship between the behavioral immune system and two di-
mensions of ideology: traditionalism and SDO.
Dimension-Specific Relationships Between Pathogens and
Ideology
Political psychologists suggest that ideology can be broadly cate-
gorized along two dimensions (22, 23), one of which is concep-
tualized as relating more to intragroup attitudes and the other of
which is conceptualized as relating more to intergroup attitudes
(24). The first (intragroup) dimension is characterized by favoring
adherence to versus departures from social traditions [frequently
operationalized as right wing authoritarianism and, specifically,
the traditionalism facet of right wing authoritarianism (25)]. The
second (intergroup) dimension is characterized by favoring versus
rejecting (hierarchical) boundaries between groups [frequently
operationalized as SDO (26)].
Although traditionalism and SDO are generally positively cor-
related, they relate differently to social values (27–29). Whereas
traditionalism relates strongly to religiosity (25), a key variable
in the behavioral immune system and ideology literature, SDO
relates only weakly to conformity and adherence to religious or-
thodoxy (30, 31). Moreover, although both traditionalism and
SDO relate to prejudices, they relate to prejudices toward differ-
ent targets. Relative to SDO, traditionalism especially relates
to prejudice toward the types of individuals who violate traditional
social norms, including prostitutes, atheists, homosexuals, and drug
users (32). In contrast, SDO especially relates to prejudice toward
individuals possessing cues to different ecological origin (e.g., skin
color), including white Americans’ prejudice toward blacks (33)
and New Zealanders’ prejudice toward Africans, Asians, and
Maori (31, 32). Reactions to immigrants (i.e., outgroup members
hailing from foreign ecologies) can further highlight differences
between SDO and traditionalism. Traditionalism relates to anti-
immigrant sentiments when immigrants are pictured as failing to
adopt local cultures rules and rituals; in contrast, SDO relates to
antiimmigrant sentiment when immigrants are pictured as assim-
ilating and, hence, increasing contact between groups (34).
Given the above considerations, the intragroup (traditional
norms) hypothesis implies that pathogen-avoidance motives should
relate to traditionalism, but not necessarily SDO. The intergroup
(outgroup-avoidance) hypothesis implies a different prediction.
Because SDO relates more strongly to prejudice toward individ-
uals from foreign ecologies (e.g., immigrants, individuals from a
different ethnic background), whereas traditionalism relates more
strongly to prejudice toward nontraditional subgroups within a
common ecology (e.g., homosexuals, atheists) (31, 32, 34), the
outgroup-avoidance hypothesis implies that pathogen-avoidance
motives should relate to SDO, but not necessarily to traditionalism.
Testing Competing Behavioral Immune System Hypotheses
Within and Across Nations
Although results at individual and societal levels have been
interpreted as providing converging evidence for behavioral im-
mune system hypotheses of ideology, they differ in two important
ways, each of which has implications for the hypotheses described
above. First, almost all studies reporting individual-level rela-
tionships between the behavioral immune system and ideology
have been conducted using North American samples. For exam-
ple, 23 of the 24 studies considered in a recent meta-analysis of
the relationship between individual differences in pathogen-
avoidance motives and social conservatism used US or Canadian
samples (12). In contrast, studies at the societal level have nec-
essarily tested group-level relationships between parasite stress
and ideology across nations or states. Second, whereas individual-
level studies have used self-report instruments to assess pathogen-
avoidance motives, cross-cultural studies have used national parasite
stress estimates, with the assumption that greater ecological par-
asite stress leads to stronger individual-level motivations to avoid
pathogens (35, 36). For example, in describing the potential re-
lationship between variables measured at the individual level (e.g.,
disgust sensitivity) and societal level (i.e., parasite stress), Fincher
and Thornhill (14) argue, “Our approach suggests that the relation-
ship between infectious disease and religiosity will be mediated... by
disgust and contamination sensitivity” (p. 78).
No research has yet tested (i) whether the individual-level re-
lationships between pathogen-avoidance motives and dimensions
of ideology (including traditionalism and SDO) found in North
America samples replicate across cultures; (ii) whether individuals
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in higher parasite stress nations indeed score higher on instruments
designed to measure pathogen-avoidance motives (e.g., disgust
sensitivity); and (iii) whether individual-level pathogen-avoidance
motives mediate any relationship between country-level parasite
stress and traditionalism, SDO, or both. The current research aims
to address these questions by measuring traditionalism, SDO, and
(pathogen) disgust sensitivity across a number of nations that vary
in parasite stress. In doing so, we test competing predictions made
by the two behavioral immune system hypoth eses of ide ology
described a bove, and we do so at both the national level and the
individual level. We then us e the same dataset (Dataset S1)to
test the common assumption that higher parasite stress at the
country level is ass ociated with stronger pathogen-avoidance
motives at the individual level. In total, we report results using
a sample of 11,501 individuals from 30 nations (details are
provided in Table 1).
Results
Traditionalism. The intragroup, traditional norms hypothesis pre-
dicts a relationship between traditionalism and pathogen-avoidance
motives. Results at both the individual and national levels were
consistent with this account. Individuals in nations with greater
parasite stress were more traditional [t(26.54) = 4.16, P < 0.001;
Fig. 1]; to illustrate, nations’ average traditionalism scores corre-
lated strongly with parasite stress (r = 0.70, P < 0.001). Notably,
these results are similar to the results reported in previous analyses
of the relationship between parasite stress and archival estimates of
collectivism across 52 and 70 nations, which yielded correlations of
r = 0.73 and r = 0.63, respectively (13). Within nations, disgust
sensitivity also related to traditionalism [t(25.97) = 8.46, P <
0.001], independent of national parasite stress. A random effects
meta-analysis showed the correlation between disgust sensitivity
and traditionalism to be r = 0.10 [95% CI (0.07, 0.12)]. Analyses
on correlations disattenuated for unreliability yielded similar re-
sults [r = 0.14, 95% CI (0.10, 0.18)].
Table 1. Survey language(s), percentage male, mean age in years, and bivariate correlations for samples in each nation surveyed
Country Language(s) n Male Age r
T_DS
r′
T_DS
r
SDO_DS
r′
SDO_DS
Argentina (AR) Spanish 827 64 34 0.13 0.20 0.08 0.11
Australia (AU) English 300 48 31 0.05 0.07 0.05 0.06
Belgium (BE) Dutch 448 46 23 0.07 0.10 0.04 0.06
Bosnia & Herzegovina (BA) Bosnian and Croatian 326 30 28 0.12 0.15 0.05 0.07
Brazil (BR) Portuguese 288 46 23 0.03 0.04 −0.01 −0.01
Canada (CA) English 307 42 35 0.03 0.04 −0.16 −0.22
Chile (CL) Spanish 262 49 28 0.03 0.04 −0.01 −0.01
China (CN) Simplified Chinese 377 10 21 0.12 0.22 0.12 0.20
Croatia (HR) Croatian 554 23 30 0.08 0.11 −0.03 −0.04
Denmark (DK) Danish 126 40 24 0.05 0.08 −0.02 −0.02
Finland (FI) Finnish 190 42 41 0.33 0.45 0.05 0.08
France (FR) French 266 29 23 0.09 0.12 0.15 0.21
Germany (DE) German 374 47 32 0.12 0.17 0.05 0.08
Greece (GR) Greek 317 27 32 0.10 0.15 0.08 0.11
India (IN) Hindi and English 504 57 23 0.02 0.03 0.08 0.14
Ireland (IE) English 150 52 32 0.09 0.12 0.17 0.23
Israel (IL) Hebrew 339 38 34 0.22 0.27 0.03 0.04
Japan (JP) Japanese 394 53 32 0.11 0.17 −0.04 −0.06
Netherlands (NL) Dutch 574 42 35 0.15 0.22 0.02 0.02
New Zealand (NZ) English 595 27 29 0.11 0.15 −0.06 −0.09
Poland (PL) Polish 210 31 28 −0.09 −0.12 −0.05 −0.09
Serbia (RS) Serbian 402 31 29 0.11 0.14 0.06 0.08
Singapore (SG) English 239 48 25 0.06 0.08 0.03 0.04
Slovakia (SK) Slovak 338 33 32 0.12 0.16 0.02 0.03
Republic of Korea (KR) Korean 137 42 21 −0.05 −0.07 0.08 0.12
Spain (ES) Spanish 699 33 33 −0.01 −0.02 0.00 0.00
Sweden (SE) English 117 45 30 0.37 0.52 0.30 0.41
Turkey (TR) Turkish 1,082 50 34 0.12 0.15 0.03 0.06
United Kingdom (UK) English 276 27 28 0.18 0.25 −0.05 −0.07
United States (US) English 483 62 30 0.11 0.13 0.07 0.09
Total 11,501 42 30 0.10 (0.07–0.12) 0.14 (0.10–0.18) 0.04 (0.02–0.06) 0.06 (0.03–0.10)
The r′ statistics are disattenuated for unreliability. The total (bottom row) includes meta-analyzed correlations and 95% CIs. DS, disgust sensitivity; SDO,
social dominance orientation; T, traditionalism.
Fig. 1. The scatterplot displays the relationship between nationa l parasite
stress and traditionalism (r = 0.70). Each data point [labeled with a two-
letter country code (abbreviations defined in Table 1)] represents a nation’s
mean traditionalism, controlling for sample demographic characteristics
(age and sex).
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SDO. The intergroup, outgroup-avoidance account predicts a re-
lationship between SDO and pathogen-avoidance motives. Re-
sults were not consistent with this prediction at the nation level,
with individuals in higher parasite stress nations scoring no higher
on SDO [t(25.19) = 0.12, P = 0.91; Fig. 2], and with the corre-
lation between national parasite stress and SDO close to zero
(and directionally opposite to predictions) (r = −0.06, P = 0.75).
Within nations, disgust sensitivity was indeed related to SDO
[t(23.57) = 6.52, P < 0.001]. However, the random effects meta-
analysis indicated that the correlation between disgust sensitivity
and SDO was close to zero [r = 0.04, 95% CI (0.02, 0.06)].
Analyses on disattenuated correlations yielded similar results [r =
0.06, 95% CI (0.03, 0.10)]. Notably, these 95% CIs did not overlap
with the 95% CIs for the relationship between disgust sensitivity
and traditionalism.
Cross-National Variability in Disgust Sensitivity. Although we ob-
served variation in disgust sensitivity across nations [τ00 = 0.09,
χ
2
(1) = 47.41, P < 0.001], this variability was unrelated to parasite
stress [t(26.18) = 1.12, P = 0.27; Fig. 3]. However, results suggested
that the disgust sensitivity instrument had similar validity across
samples. In addition to observing a relationship between disgust
sensitivity and traditionalism across nations, we replicated previously
reported sex-related differences in disgust sensitivity (37, 38), with
women consistently scoring higher than men across nations [t(20.73) =
16.46, P < 0.001, meta-analyzed d = 0.41, 95% CI (0.36, 0.45)].
Discussion
Several lines of evidence point to a relationship between path-
ogens and politics (9, 12). Here, we aimed to clarify the nature of
this relationship by generating competing predictions using two
behavioral immune system hypotheses of conservatism. The
traditional norms account predicts that pathogen-avoidance
motives should relate to traditionalism, which, relative to SDO,
more strongly relates to intragroup attitudes, such as endorse-
ments of traditional rules and rituals and antipathy toward
within-group deviants. In contrast, the outgroup-avoidance ac-
count predicts that pathogen-avoidance motives should relate to
SDO, which, relative to traditionalism, more strongly relates to
intergroup attitudes, such as negative attitudes toward ethnic
outgroups and support for barriers between groups. Results
supported the traditional norms account over the outgroup-
avoidance account, with national parasite stress relating strongly
to traditionalism but not to SDO. Furthermore, a meta-analysis
of individual-level relationships within the 30 sampled nations
revealed that disgust sensitivity relates more strongly to traditionalism
than to SDO. Indeed, whereas the traditionalism-disgust sensitivity
relationship was of a magnitude similar to that observed in a large
recent study in the United States (39), the SDO-disgust sensitivity
relationship, w hil e nonze ro, was negligible.
Results also helped to clarify the relationship between national
parasite stress and individual pathogen-avoidance motives. We
found no support for the notion that individuals living in more
pathogen-dense countries are more disgust-sensitive. This null
result may be understood by considering both the benefits and the
costs of investing in pathogen avoidance. Although greater dis-
gust sensitivity steers individuals away from cues to pathogens, it
also constrains dietary, sexual, and social contact opportunities
(4, 40). If pathogens are ubiquitous enough that investments in
avoidance do not decrease infection—at least not enough to
offset the benefits of behaviors that pose some infection risk—
then individuals in pathogen-rich ecologies could invest more
effort in resisting pathogens [e.g., through greater production of
pathogen-combating cytokines (41)] rather than avoiding them.
Of course, our parasite stress data, like most used in this litera-
ture (36), were measured at the country level, and we cannot rule
out the possibility that individual disgust sensitivity is calibrated
by individual rather than national pathogen exposure. However,
findings here corroborate previous results indicating that child-
hood illness in a pathogen-rich location (Bangladesh) is unrelated
to disgust sensitivity in adulthood (42).
The observed null relationship between disgust sensitivity and
national parasite stress suggests that different processes might
account for the relationships between ideology and national par-
asite stress versus ideology and disgust sensitivity. At the national
level, those norms categorized as “traditional” might be more suc-
cessfully transmitted and sustained within pathogen-rich ecologies if
such norms lead to reduced contact with pathogens (9–11, 20).
Indeed, mathematical models indicate that pathogens can result in
the cultural evolution of prophylactic rules and rituals (43). Alter-
natively, traditionalism might promote within-coalition alliances
that can provide health care in times of illness, which might be
especially critical in high parasite stress ecologies (14, 19, 44, 45).
Alternatively, traditional norms might endure more in pathogen-
rich nations simply because the ecologies of such nations are less
hospitable to liberal Western institutions and infrastructures, and
were thus less influenced by European colonialism (46).
At the individual level, those who are more motivated to avoid
pathogens might especially find traditional rules and rituals ap-
pealing for a number of reasons. Relative to less restricted sex
(i.e., more experimental, more partners), sexual practices often
Fig. 2. The scatterplot displays the relationship between national parasite
stress and SDO (r = −0.06). Each data point [labeled with a two-letter country
code (abbreviations defined in Table 1)] represents a nation’s mean SDO,
controlling for sample demographic characteristics (age and sex).
Fig. 3. The scatterplot displays the relationship between national parasite stress
and disgust sensitivity (r = 0.18). Each data point [labeled with a two-letter
country code (abbreviations defined in Table 1)] represents a nation’s mean dis-
gust sensitivity, controlling for sample demographic characteristics (age and sex).
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categorized as traditional expose individuals to fewer pathogens
(39) and reduce the ability for sexually transmitted infections to
thrive within communities (47). Traditional food preparation
techniques often include ingredients with antimicrobial proper-
ties (10), traditional food taboos sometimes limit pathogen and
toxin exposure (7, 48), and traditional hygiene rules can co-
ordinate behaviors to limit pathogen transmission (e.g., when one
hand is used to contact bodily waste and is not used for physical
contact with foods or with social allies). Within each of these
accounts, relationships between pathogen avoidance and tradition-
alism could solely reflect motivations to avoid direct contact with
pathogens, or they could also reflect motivations to regulate others’
behavior, which might indirectly increase infection risk (18, 47). Just
as we have attempted to clarify why the behavioral immune system
might relate to political ideology, based on either norm adherence
or outgroup avoidance, future work can clarify which of these as-
pects of traditionalism might be especially appealing to those
individuals especially motiv ated to avoid pathogens.
Methods
The study was reviewed and approved by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Vaste Commissie Wetenschap en Ethiek Institutional Review Board. Further
ethical approval was obtained where required by local ethics boards. Consent
was gathered after participants read an information sheet describing the
contents of the survey.
Participants. We recruited participants in 30 countries (Table 1). We aimed to
enroll at least 200 participants in each country and to recruit participants
from both universities and the general population. After excluding partici-
pants who (i) reported being less than 18 y old, (ii) did not report their sex, or
(iii) had completely missing data for any of the instruments described below,
our final sample consisted of 11,501 participants [42% male, with a mean age
of 30.06 y (SD = 12.62)].
Measures. Participants completed a short questionnaire described as concerning
“attitudes toward political issues and groups of people.” In all but one country
(Sweden, where English fluency is high), questionnaires were translated into
the official or native language, with multiple languages offered in some
multilingual countries (language details are provided in Table 1). The ques-
tionnaire contained measures of traditionalism, SDO, and disgust sensitivity. It
also included items peripherally related to this study, including sex, age, re-
ligious attendance, endorsement of policy issues (e.g., should society increase
its use of nuclear power?), and attitudes toward different types of people. We
focus only on traditionalism, SDO, and disgust sensitivity here, but the English
version of the survey (including all items) is available in SI Appendix.
Traditionalism. We assessed traditionalism using the six-item short form of the
traditionalism facet of the authoritarianism-conservatism-traditionalism
scale (25). This instrument relates strongly to religiosity and other manifes-
tations of tradit ional values. Example items include “the ‘old-fashioned
ways’ and ‘old-fashioned values’ still show the best way to live” and “this
country will flourish if young people stop experimenting with drugs, alcohol,
and sex, and pay more attention to family values. ” Responses were recorded
on a 0 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree) scale.
SDO. The four-item short SDO scale (49) was used to assess SDO. The instrument
has been used in at least one previous multinational study, where it consistently
(negatively) related to desires to protect ethnic and religious minorities across
cultures (49). Example items include “in setting priorities, we must consider all
groups” (reverse coded) and “we should not push for group equality.” Re-
sponses were recorded on a 0 (extremely oppose) to 6 (extremely favor) scale.
Disgust Sensitivity. Most research in the behavioral immune system literature
has operationalized pathogen-avoidance motives using self-report measures
of disgust sensitivity or contamination sensitivity (36). We used the seven-item
pathogen factor of the three-domain disgust scale (50) for the current in-
vestigation, for two reasons: (i) Its item content appears more interpretable
to individuals from diverse cultures relative to other instruments, and (ii)itis
less confounded with sexual openness and neuroticism than other disgust
sensitivity instruments (39, 51). Participants reported how disgusting they find
each of six items on a 0 (not at all disgusting) to 6 (extremely disgusting) scale.
Example items include “stepping on dog poop” and “sitting next to someone
who has red sores on their arm.”
Parasite Stress. Researchers have used several different indices to estimate
parasite stress (36), with the most frequently used being the historical prev-
alence of pathogens within regions (52) and the contemporary frequency of
nonzoonotic parasites within regions (14). These two estimates were strongly
correlated for the 30 nations sampled here (r = 0.75). We opted to use the
historical prevalence estimates because they were less strongly skewed, with
nation-level results less strongly influenced by the higher parasite stress
nations sampled here (e.g., India, Brazil). No conclusions changed when using
the nonzoonotic disease estimates, or when we used alternative parasite stress
estimates (zoonotic parasites and contemporary infectious disease deaths; de-
tails and results are provided in SI Appendix). To facilitate visual interpretation
of results (Figs. 1–3), we added a constant to each nation’s parasite stress score
so that the lowest scoring country (Canada) had a value of zero.
Analytical Strategy. Data were analyzed in SPSS version 23 using random
slope, random intercept, linear mixed modeling with restricted maximum
likelihood estimation criteria. Participants (level 1 units) were nested within
nations (level 2 units). Given that our samples varied in their sex ratio and
mean age, we controlled for participant sex and age. We used disgust sen-
sitivity as a level 1 predictor to test for effects of individual pathogen-
avoidance motivations on SDO and traditionalism. We used historical parasite
prevalence as a level 2 variable to test for effects of parasite stress on SDO,
traditionalism, and pathogen-avoidance motivations. We allowed the effects
of each level 1 variable to vary across level 2. Our analyses can thus be de-
scribed as follows, where Y
ij
refers to traditionalism or SDO for individuals
(i) within nations (j):
Level 1: Y
ij
= β
0j
+ β
1j
DISGUST
ij
+ β
2j
SEX
ij
+ β
3j
AGE
ij
+ e
ij
Level 2: β
0j
= γ
00
+ γ
01
PARASITE
j
+ u
0j
; β
1j
= γ
10
+ u
1j
;
β
2j
= γ
20
+ u
2j
; β
3j
= γ
30
+ u
3j
.
We also tested whether disgust sensitivity (Y
ij
below) varied across nations as
a function of parasite stress, with the following model:
Level 1: Y
ij
= β
0j
+ β
1
j
SEX
ij
+ β
2
j
AGE
ij
+ e
ij
Level 2: β
0j
= γ
00
+ γ
01
PARASITE
j
+ u
0j
; β
1j
= γ
10
+ u
1j
; β
2j
= γ
20
+ u
2j
.
After multilevel analyses, we meta-analyzed the level 1 effects using Com-
prehensive Meta-Analysis software. This strategy allows for a point estimate of
the effect size of the relationship between disgust sensitivity and the two
dimensions of ideology, as well as 95% CIs for those relationships. Each country
was treated as a different sample. For both traditionalism and SDO, we con-
ducted two meta-analyses of the relationship with disgust sensitivity. The first
involved meta-analyzing the observed effect size within each country, and the
second involved meta-analyzing the effect size after disa ttenuating for the
country-specific unreliability in disgust sensitivity, traditionalism, and SDO.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. J.M.T., publication costs, and open access funds are
supported by the European Research Council [(ERC) StG-2015 680002-HBIS].
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