Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.
Proc Biol Sci. 2019 Nov 6;286(1914):20191576. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2019.1576. Epub 2019 Oct 30.
Pathogens represent a significant threat to human health leading to the emergence of strategies designed to help manage their negative impact. We examined how spiritual beliefs developed to explain and predict the devastating effects of pathogens and spread of infectious disease. Analysis of existing data in studies 1 and 2 suggests that moral vitalism (beliefs about spiritual forces of evil) is higher in geographical regions characterized by historical higher levels of pathogens. Furthermore, drawing on a sample of 3140 participants from 28 countries in study 3, we found that historical higher levels of pathogens were associated with stronger endorsement of moral vitalistic beliefs. Furthermore, endorsement of moral vitalistic beliefs statistically mediated the previously reported relationship between pathogen prevalence and conservative ideologies, suggesting these beliefs reinforce behavioural strategies which function to prevent infection. We conclude that moral vitalism may be adaptive: by emphasizing concerns over contagion, it provided an explanatory model that enabled human groups to reduce rates of contagious disease.
病原体对人类健康构成重大威胁，导致出现旨在帮助管理其负面影响的策略。我们研究了精神信仰如何发展，以解释和预测病原体的破坏性影响和传染病的传播。研究 1 和研究 2 中的现有数据分析表明，在历史上病原体水平较高的地理区域，道德活力论（关于邪恶精神力量的信仰）更高。此外，在研究 3 中，我们从来自 28 个国家的 3140 名参与者的样本中发现，历史上病原体水平较高与更强烈地支持道德活力论信仰有关。此外，道德活力论信仰在统计学上中介了先前报告的病原体流行率与保守意识形态之间的关系，这表明这些信仰加强了预防感染的行为策略。我们的结论是，道德活力论可能是适应性的：通过强调对传染的关注，它提供了一个解释模型，使人类群体能够降低传染病的发病率。
