The impact of perceived disease threat on women’s desire for novel dating and sexual partners: Is variety the best medicine?

Researchers in the evolutionary sciences have long understood men's desire to mate with a variety of women. Because men's obligatory investment in offspring production is relatively small, men can directly increase their number of descendants by mating with multiple partners. Relatively less is known, however, about the conditions that favor sexual variety seeking in women. Drawing on insights from evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology, we examined the relationship between the perceived pathogen load in an environment and women's desire for sexual variety. Across 5 experiments, we primed women with cues indicating that the rate of disease is increasing in their environment. We then measured their desire for novel sexual and dating partners. Results revealed that women with a history of vulnerability to illness respond to these cues by desiring a greater number of novel partners. This shift was not found in men and did not predict variety seeking in a nonsexual domain. In addition to providing evidence of a novel conceptual link between the pathogen load and patterns of human mating behavior, this research also provides new insights into women's mating psychology and the conditions that favor sexual variety seeking in the greater investing sex

More than just a pretty face? The relationship between immune function and perceived facial attractiveness

It has long been hypothesized that attractiveness provides a cue to a target's health and immunocompetence. However, much of the research testing this hypothesis has relied on a small number of indirect proxies of immune function and the results of this research have been mixed. Here, we build on this past research, examining the relationship between target attractiveness and: (a) self-reported health, (b) in vivo measures of inflammation and white blood cell count / composition, and (c) in vitro tests of targets' immune function, including (c1) leukocyte proliferation in response to immunological stimulants, (c2) phagocytosis of Escherichia coli bioparticles, (c3) NK cell-mediated lysis of target tumor cells, and (c4) Staphylococcus aureus growth in isolated plasma. Results revealed multiple, sometimes sex-differentiated, relationships between targets' immune function and others' perceptions of their attractiveness. Together, this work suggests complex, often sex-differentiated relationships between immune function, health, and attractiveness.Funding provided by: National Science FoundationCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001Award Number: BCS Grant No. 15512

Individual differences in psychological rigidity and beliefs about system fitness predict attitudes about social determinants of disaster risk

Although events triggered by phenomena such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and landslides are routinely referred to as “natural disasters”, scholars have long argued that they are not natural at all; rather their disastrous consequences are a result of sociopolitical decisions surrounding the accumulation of risk. In the current work, we seek to understand who is more likely to accept or reject the importance of risk reduction by examining two constructs:1) perceived blamelessness in the face of disasters, and 2) lack of support for disaster risk reduction. Across two studies (combined n = 1732), higher perceived blamelessness and lower support for risk reduction via socio-political means were reliably related to individual difference measures of psychological rigidity as well as beliefs about socio-economic system fitness. Specifically, higher levels of system justification, belief in a just world, fair market ideology, need for cognitive closure, intolerance of ambiguity, social dominance orientation, and right-wing authoritarianism were consistently related to lower likelihood of assigning human blame for disaster damages as well as less endorsement of socio-political interventions to stem disaster risks. Both blamelessness and intervention-avoidance were also related positively to political conservatism. Importantly, observed relationships remained significant after controlling for political ideology which correlates with each of the measured variables. We argue that observed relationships between individual difference variables and support for risk reduction policies around natural hazards that are not reducible to co-relationships with political ideology may be particularly important to consider when crafting successful interventions.</p

Behavioral immune system activity predicts downregulation of chronic basal inflammation.

Here, we present a mechanistically grounded theory detailing a novel function of the behavioral immune system (BIS), the psychological system that prompts pathogen avoidance behaviors. We propose that BIS activity allows the body to downregulate basal inflammation, preventing resultant oxidative damage to DNA and promoting longevity. Study 1 investigated the relationship between a trait measure of pathogen avoidance motivation and in vitro and in vivo proinflammatory cytokine production. Study 2 examined the relationship between this same predictor and DNA damage often associated with prolonged inflammation. Results revealed that greater trait pathogen avoidance motivation predicts a) lower levels of spontaneous (but not stimulated) proinflammatory cytokine release by peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), b) lower plasma levels of the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6), and c) lower levels of oxidative DNA damage. Thus, the BIS may promote health by protecting the body from the deleterious effects of inflammation and oxidative stress