Pathogen Avoidance Motivation and Opposition to Cultural and Racial Outgroups

• In Event: Group Conflict and Attitudes Toward Immigration

Abstract

Skepticism toward outgroups is widespread in contemporary societies. It induces opposition against immigration (Sniderman, Hagendoorn, and Prior 2004, Hainmueller and Hiscox 2010) and it is associated with xenophobic speech that attribute disease-related characteristics to outgroup members (Faulkner et al. 2004). A growing body of research in political science and in psychology has demonstrated that individual differences in pathogen avoidance motivations shape opposition to immigrant outgroups (e.g. Faulkner et al. 2004, Green et al. 2010, Navarrete & Fessler 2006, Reid et al 2012). According to the pathogen avoidance model of intergroup attitudes, pathogen avoidance motivations increase opposition to individuals who at a heuristic level are perceived as potential carriers of infectious disease. Because pathogens can be lethal and very difficult to detect and because superficial physical cues such as lesions, disfigurements and other morphological abnormalities are by far insufficient predictors of pathogen presence, it is likely that the psychological mechanisms for pathogen avoidance evolved to be hyper-vigilant against superficial cues indicating that an individual is subjectively different from the standard prototype within one’s own group.
Importantly, while a large number of studies have shown that individuals high in pathogen avoidance motivation are more opposed to immigrant outgroups, we still have a limited understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying these empirical patterns and the specific kinds of superficial cues that elicit outgroup hostility and distance taking among individuals high in pathogen avoidance motivation. Specifically, two distinct and competing explanations have been advanced to account for the empirical association between pathogen avoidance motivation and opposition to foreign outgroups. The first explanation claims that contact with foreign populations could increase the risk of encountering pathogens to which one has little or no immunity, so that contact with outgroup members from foreign ecologies – possibly even from members of those foreign ecologies that could be reached when travelling by foot - could be more likely to bring contagious disease than contact with ingroup members (Faulkner et al. 2004, Tybur et al 2016). From this perspective cues indicating that an individual comes from a different ecology should be particularly powerful triggers of opposition to immigrant outgroups among individuals high in behavioral immune sensitivity. The second hypothesis argues that at the cultural level some deep local norms and rules (such as for example norms pertaining to hygiene, food preparation, physical contact with non-kin) evolved to counter local pathogen threats by leading the individual to avoid directly coming into contact with pathogens and by regulating others’ behavior to indirectly decrease infection risk. According to this account nonconformity with such norms increases individual risk of infection (e.g. Faulkner et al. 2004, Schaller & Murray 2008, 2012, Tybur et al 2016). Thus from this perspective, cues indicating that an individual subscribes to a different set of deep cultural norms should be particularly powerful triggers of opposition to immigrant outgroups.
In this paper we test these competing explanations for the empirical association between pathogen avoidance motivation and opposition to outgroups. We focus on race as a central heuristic cue to presumed home ecology (cf. Williams, Sng and Neuberg 2016) and religious group membership as a cue of deep cultural practices (cf. Lacina & Lee 2013). Using unique cross-national and representative survey experiments including both non-obtrusive visual cues as well as vignettes, we test the effect of racial and religious group cues on the association between individual differences in pathogen avoidance motivation and endorsement of intergroup barriers and negativity toward outgroups. We conclude by discussing the implications of the findings for understanding of the psychological mechanisms linking pathogen avoidance motivation to outgroup hostility and the factors that may promote peaceful co-existence between majority ingroup members and outgroup minority members.

Authors

• Lene Aarøe, Aarhus University

• Michael Bang Petersen, University of Aarhus