Disease avoidance cues interfere with spontaneous trait inferences

Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences

Volumn 8, Issue 4, 2014, Pages 289-302

  McCarthy, Randy J ^a   Skowronski, John J ^a  

^a NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Behavioral immune system; Spontaneous trait inferences

Indexed keywords

EID: 84964344429     PISSN: 23302925     EISSN: 23302933     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1037/h0099105     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. Ackerman, J. M., Becker, D. V., Mortensen, C. R., Sasaki, T., Neuberg, S. L., & Kenrick, D. T. (2009). A pox on the mind: Disjunction of attention and memory in the processing of physical disfigurement. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 478-485. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2008.12.008
2. Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York, NY: Basic Books.
3. Buss, D. M., & Duntley, J. D. (2006). The evolution of aggression. In M. Schaller, D. T. Kenrick, & J. A. Simpson (Eds.), Evolution and social psychology (pp. 263-285). New York, NY: Psychology Press.
4. Carlston, D. E., & Skowronski, J. J. (1994). Savings in the relearning of trait information as evidence for spontaneous inference generation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 840-856. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.66.5.840
5. Cohen, L. E., & Machalek, R. (1988). A general theory of expropriative crime: An evolutionary ecological approach. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 465-501. doi: 10.1086/229027
6. Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1992). Cognitive adaptations for social exchange. In J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The adapted mind (pp. 163-228). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
7. Crawford, M. T., McCarthy, R. J., Kjaerstad, H. L., & Skowronski, J. J. (2013). Inferences are for doing: The impact of approach and avoidance states on the generation of spontaneous trait inferences. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39, 267-278. doi: 10.1177/0146167212473158
8. Crawford, M. T., Skowronski, J. J., Stiff, C., & Sherer, C. R. (2007). Interfering with inferential, but not associative, processes underlying spontaneous trait inference. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 677-690. doi: 10.1177/0146167206298567
9. Duncan, L. A. (2009). Disease avoidance mechanisms and their implications (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
10. Duncan, L. A., & Schaller, M. (2009). Prejudicial attitudes toward older adults may be exaggerated when people feel vulnerable to infectious disease: Evidence and implications. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy (ASAP), 9, 97-115. doi: 10.1111/j.1530-2415.2009.01188.x
11. Duncan, L. A., Schaller, M., & Park, J. H. (2009). Perceived vulnerability to disease: Development of a 15-item self-report instrument. Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 541-546. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2009.05.001
12. Faulkner, J., Schaller, M., Park, J. H., & Duncan, L. A. (2004). Evolved disease-avoidance mechanisms and contemporary xenophobic attitudes. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 7, 333-353. doi: 10.1177/1368430204046142
13. Fincher, C. L., Thornhill, R., Murray, D. R., & Schaller, M. (2008). Pathogen prevalence predicts human cross-cultural variability in individualism/ collectivism. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 275, 1279-1285. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0094
14. Fiske, S. T. (1992). Thinking is for doing: Portraits of social cognition from daguerreotype to laser photo. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 877-889. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.63.6.877
15. Hedges, L. V. (1981). Distribution theory for Glass's estimator of effect size and related estimators. Journal of Educational Statistics, 6, 107-128. doi: 10.2307/1164588
16. McCarthy, R. J., & Skowronski, J. J. (2011a). The interplay of controlled and automatic processes in the expression of spontaneously inferred traits: A PD analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 229-240. doi: 10.1037/a0021991
17. McCarthy, R. J., & Skowronski, J. J. (2011b). What will Phil do next? The influence of spontaneous trait inferences on behavior predictions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 321-332. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2010.10.015
18. McCarthy, R. J., & Skowronski, J. J. (2013). Hierarchical cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling of 48 trait-implicative behaviors. Manuscript submitted for publication.
19. Miller, G. (2001). The mating mind. New York, NY: Anchor Books.
20. Mortensen, C. R., Becker, D. V., Ackerman, J. M., Neuberg, S. L., & Kenrick, D. T. (2010). Infection breeds reticence: The effects of disease salience on self-perceptions of personality and behavioral avoidance tendencies. Psychological Science, 21, 440-447. doi: 10.1177/0956797610361706
21. Murray, D. R., & Schaller, M. (2010). Historical prevalence of infectious diseases within 230 geopolitical regions: A tool for investigating origins of culture. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 41, 99-108. doi: 10.1177/0022022109349510
22. Park, J. H., Faulkner, J., & Schaller, M. (2003). Evolved disease-avoidance processes and contemporary anti-social behavior: Prejudicial attitudes and avoidance of people with physical disabilities. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 27, 65-87. doi: 10.1023/A:1023910408854
23. Park, J. H., Schaller, M., & Crandall, C. S. (2007). Pathogen-avoidance mechanisms and the stigmatization of obese people. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 410-414. doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav .2007.05.008
24. Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 879-891. doi: 10.3758/BRM.40.3.879
25. Rim, S., Uleman, J. S., & Trope, Y. (2009). Spontaneous trait inference and construal level theory: Psychological distance increases nonconscious trait thinking. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 1088-1097. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.06.015
26. Schaller, M. (2008). Evolutionary bases of first impressions. In N. Ambady & J. J. Skowronski (Eds.), First impressions (pp. 15-34). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
27. Schaller, M., & Duncan, L. A. (2007). The behavioral immune system: Its evolution and social psychological implications. In J. P. Forgas, M. G. Haselton, & W. von Hippel (Eds.), Evolution and the social mind: Evolutionary psychology and social cognition (pp. 293-307). New York, NY: Psychology Press.
28. Schaller, M., Miller, G. E., Gervais, W. M., Yager, S., & Chen, E. (2010). Mere visual perception of others' disease symptoms facilitates a more aggressive immune response. Psychological Science, 21, 649-652. doi: 10.1177/0956797610368064
29. Schaller, M., & Park, J. H. (2011). The behavioral immune system (and why it matters). Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 99-103. doi: 10.1177/0963721411402596
30. Skowronski, J. J., Carlston, D. E., & Hartnett, J. L. (2008). Spontaneous impressions derived from observations of behavior: What a long, strange trip it's been (and it's not over yet). In N. Ambady & J. J. Skowronski (Eds.), First impressions (pp. 313-333). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
31. Todorov, A., & Uleman, J. S. (2002). Spontaneous trait inferences are bound to actors' faces: Evidence from a false recognition paradigm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1051-1065. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.83.5.1051
32. Uleman, J. S. (1988). [Trait and gist inference norms for over 300 potential trait-implying sentences]. Unpublished raw data.
33. Uleman, J. S., Saribay, S. A., & Gonzalez, C. (2008). Spontaneous inferences, implicit impressions, and implicit theories. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 329-360. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.59.103006.093707
34. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063-1070. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063
35. Wells, B. M., Skowronski, J. J., Crawford, M. T., Scherer, C. R., & Carlston, D. E. (2011). Inference making and linking both require thinking: Spontaneous trait inference and spontaneous trait transference both rely on working memory capacity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 1116-1126. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.05.013
36. Wigboldus, D. H., Sherman, J. W., Franzese, H. L., & van Knippenberg, A. (2004). Capacity and comprehension: Spontaneous stereotyping under cognitive load. Social Cognition, 22, 292-309. doi: 10.1521/soco.22.3.292.35967