Peterson Johnathan C, Gonzalez Frank J, Schneider Stephen P
1Palo Alto College.
2University of Arizona.
Politics Life Sci. 2017 Fall;36(2):17-36. doi: 10.1017/pls.2017.24.
This article examines how disease salience influences attitudes toward two types of humanitarian aid: sending foreign aid and housing refugees. Some have argued that disease salience increases levels of out-group prejudice through what is referred to as the behavioral immune system (BIS), and this increase in out-group prejudice works to shape policy attitudes. However, an alternative mechanism that may explain the effects of disease salience is contamination fear, which would suggest there is no group bias in the effects of disease threat. Existing work largely interprets opposition to policies that assist out-groups as evidence of out-group prejudice. We suggest it is necessary to separate measures of out-group animosity from opinions toward specific policies to determine whether increased out-group prejudice rather than fear of contamination is the mechanism by which disease salience impacts policy attitudes. Across two experiments, disease salience is shown to significantly decrease support for humanitarian aid, but only in the form of refugee support. Furthermore, there is converging evidence to suggest that any influence of disease salience on aid attitudes is not caused by a corresponding increase in xenophobia. We suggest that the mechanism by which disease threat influences policy attitudes is a general fear of contamination rather than xenophobia. These findings go against an important hypothesized mechanism of the BIS and have critical implications for the relationship between disease salience and attitudes toward transnational policies involving humanitarian aid.
提供对外援助和安置难民。一些人认为，疾病显著性通过所谓的行为免疫系统（BIS）提高了对外群体的偏见程度，而这种对外群体偏见的增加会影响政策态度。然而，另一种可能解释疾病显著性影响的机制是污染恐惧，这表明疾病威胁的影响不存在群体偏见。现有研究大多将反对帮助外群体的政策解释为对外群体偏见的证据。我们认为，有必要将对外群体敌意的衡量与对具体政策的看法区分开来，以确定疾病显著性影响政策态度的机制是对外群体偏见的增加，还是对污染的恐惧。在两项实验中，疾病显著性显著降低了对人道主义援助的支持，但仅体现在对难民支持的形式上。此外，有越来越多的证据表明，疾病显著性对援助态度的任何影响并非由仇外心理的相应增加所致。我们认为，疾病威胁影响政策态度的机制是对污染的普遍恐惧，而非仇外心理。这些发现与行为免疫系统的一个重要假设机制相悖，对疾病显著性与涉及人道主义援助的跨国政策态度之间的关系具有关键意义。
