Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO 80918;
Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Feb 23;118(8). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2018552118.
Disgust is hypothesized to be an evolved emotion that functions to regulate the avoidance of pathogen-related stimuli and behaviors. Individuals with higher pathogen disgust sensitivity (PDS) are predicted to be exposed to and thus infected by fewer pathogens, though no studies have tested this directly. Furthermore, PDS is hypothesized to be locally calibrated to the types of pathogens normally encountered and the fitness-related costs and benefits of infection and avoidance. Market integration (the degree of production for and consumption from market-based economies) influences the relative costs/benefits of pathogen exposure and avoidance through sanitation, hygiene, and lifestyle changes, and is thus predicted to affect PDS. Here, we examine the function of PDS in disease avoidance, its environmental calibration, and its socioecological variation by examining associations among PDS, market-related lifestyle factors, and measures of bacterial, viral, and macroparasitic infection at the individual, household, and community levels. Data were collected among 75 participants (ages 5 to 59 y) from 28 households in three Ecuadorian Shuar communities characterized by subsistence-based lifestyles and high pathogen burden, but experiencing rapid market integration. As predicted, we found strong negative associations between PDS and biomarkers of immune response to viral/bacterial infection, and weaker associations between PDS and measures of macroparasite infection, apparently mediated by market integration-related differences. We provide support for the previously untested hypothesis that PDS is negatively associated with infection, and document variation in PDS indicative of calibration to local socioeconomic conditions. More broadly, findings highlight the importance of evolved psychological mechanisms in human health outcomes.
厌恶被假设为一种进化而来的情绪，其功能是调节对病原体相关刺激和行为的回避。具有更高病原体厌恶敏感性（PDS）的个体预计会接触到并因此感染较少的病原体，尽管没有研究直接检验过这一点。此外，PDS 被假设为针对通常遇到的病原体类型以及感染和回避的与健康相关的成本和收益进行局部校准。市场一体化（基于市场的经济中的生产和消费程度）通过卫生、卫生和生活方式的改变来影响病原体暴露和回避的相对成本/收益，因此预计会影响 PDS。在这里，我们通过检查 PDS 在疾病回避中的功能、其环境校准及其社会生态变异，研究了 PDS 与与市场相关的生活方式因素以及个体、家庭和社区层面的细菌、病毒和大型寄生虫感染的衡量指标之间的关联。数据是在三个厄瓜多尔 Shuar 社区的 28 户家庭中的 75 名参与者（年龄 5 至 59 岁）中收集的，这些社区的生活方式以自给自足为基础，病原体负担高，但经历了快速的市场一体化。正如预期的那样，我们发现 PDS 与病毒/细菌感染的免疫反应生物标志物之间存在强烈的负相关，而与大型寄生虫感染的衡量指标之间存在较弱的关联，这显然是由与市场一体化相关的差异介导的。我们为之前未经检验的假设提供了支持，即 PDS 与感染呈负相关，并记录了指示对当地社会经济条件进行校准的 PDS 变化。更广泛地说，这些发现强调了进化心理机制在人类健康结果中的重要性。
