Department of Psychology, Florida State University, USA.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2012 Jun;102(6):1198-213. doi: 10.1037/a0027198. Epub 2012 Feb 13.
The behavioral immune system is designed to promote the detection and avoidance of potential sources of disease. Whereas previous studies of the behavioral immune system have provided insight into the types of heuristic cues used to identify disease carriers, the present research provides an understanding of the basic psychological processes involved in the detection of those cues. Across 4 studies, feeling vulnerable to disease, whether that feeling stemmed from dispositional tendencies or situational primes, facilitated a disease overperception bias--a tendency to overperceive people in the environment displaying heuristic disease cues. This disease overperception bias was observed in the outcomes of 2 cognitive processes: categorization and memory. When concerned about disease, participants set a lenient threshold for categorizing targets as displaying heuristic disease cues (e.g., obesity, old age). Additionally, concerns about disease led participants to set a lenient threshold for reporting on a recognition task that they had previously seen individuals displaying those disease cues. The present research provides insight into the basic cognitive mechanisms underlying the operation of the behavioral immune system.
行为免疫系统旨在促进对潜在疾病源的检测和避免。虽然之前对行为免疫系统的研究提供了对用于识别疾病携带者的启发式线索类型的深入了解，但本研究提供了对涉及检测这些线索的基本心理过程的理解。在 4 项研究中，无论是源于性格倾向还是情境提示的对疾病的易感性，都会促进对疾病的过度感知偏差——即过度感知环境中显示启发式疾病线索的人的趋势。这种对疾病的过度感知偏差在 2 种认知过程的结果中观察到：分类和记忆。当人们担心疾病时，他们会为将目标归类为显示启发式疾病线索（例如肥胖、老年）设定一个宽松的阈值。此外，对疾病的担忧会导致参与者为他们之前看到过显示这些疾病线索的人在识别任务中的报告设定一个宽松的阈值。本研究深入了解了行为免疫系统运作的基本认知机制。
