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ABSTRACT: This chapter reports on our experimental investigations of the powerful and aversive social phenomenon of ostracism. Using a series of paradigms, these investigations demonstrate that ostracism threatens the need for belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence. With occasional and infrequent exposure to ostracism episode, the reactions, whether they be prosocial or antisocial, reflect attempts to fulfill these threatened needs. We present evidence to suggest that ostracism may have the effect of making mortality salient and consequently provoke similar cultural worldview defenses as other mortality salience cues. We also discuss the long-term consequences of ostracism, which can lead to alienation, helplessness, depression, and feelings of worthlessness. Feeling nonexistent inevitably leads to a lack of will, purpose, and meaning. Both rage, in the short term, and impotent (existential) despair, in the long term, will invade the mind of the ostracized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
10/2012;
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ABSTRACT: In this chapter, the authors review the recently burgeoning empirical literature on ostracism, social exclusion, and rejection, and emerge with what appear to be two sets of reliable yet opposing conclusions. On one hand, ostracism appears to set in motion behaviors that will increase the likelihood that the individual will be reincluded in the ostracizing group or will be attractive to a new group. On the other hand, social exclusion has led individuals to react antisocially, which would almost assure them of further exclusion. Two possible explanations and new data are presented that shed light on the viability of these explanations. The first explanation is that two opposing forces are activated in the ostracized individual: Threats to belonging and self-esteem pull the individual toward repairing his or her inclusionary status; threats to control and recognition push the individual toward provocative behaviors that capture the attention of others. A second explanation is that perhaps both reactions occur in individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
10/2012;
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ABSTRACT: Recent findings suggest that disgust can activate particular aspects of the immune system. In this study we examine whether disgust can also elevate core body temperature (BT), a further feature of an immune response to disease. In addition, we also examined whether food based disgust - a core eliciting stimulus - may be a more potent immune stimulus than non-food based disgust. Healthy males were randomly assigned to view one of four sets of images - food disgust, non-food disgust, food control and negative emotion control. Measures of BT, salivary immune and related markers, and self-report data, were collected before, and at two time points after image viewing. Disgust elevated BT relative to the negative emotion control condition, as did food images. Different mechanisms appeared to account for these effects on BT, with higher initial levels of Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha (TNF-a) and disgust, predictive of BT increases in the disgust conditions. Disgust also increased TNF-a, and albumin levels, relative to the control conditions. Type of disgust exerted little effect. These findings further support the idea that disgust impacts upon immune function, and that disgust serves primarily a disease avoidance function.
Brain Behavior and Immunity 07/2012; 26(7):1160-8. · 4.72 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Infectious disease exerts a large selective pressure on all organisms. One response to this has been for animals to evolve energetically costly immune systems to counter infection, while another--the focus of this theme issue--has been the evolution of proactive strategies primarily to avoid infection. These strategies can be grouped into three types, all of which demonstrate varying levels of interaction with the immune system. The first concerns maternal strategies that function to promote the immunocompetence of their offspring. The second type of strategy influences mate selection, guiding the selection of a healthy mate and one who differs maximally from the self in their complement of antigen-coding genes. The third strategy involves two classes of behaviour. One relates to the capacity of the organisms to learn associations between cues indicative of pathogen threat and immune responses. The other relates to prevention and even treatment of infection through behaviours such as avoidance, grooming, quarantine, medicine and care of the sick. In humans, disease avoidance is based upon cognition and especially the emotion of disgust. Human disease avoidance is not without its costs. There is a propensity to reject healthy individuals who just appear sick--stigmatization--and the system may malfunction, resulting in various forms of psychopathology. Pathogen threat also appears to have been a highly significant and unrecognized force in shaping human culture so as to minimize infection threats. This cultural shaping process--moralization--can be co-opted to promote human health.
Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences 12/2011; 366(1583):3361-3. · 6.40 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Stigmatization is characterized by chronic social and physical avoidance of a person(s) by other people. Infectious disease may produce an apparently similar form of isolation-disease avoidance-but on symptom remission this often abates. We propose that many forms of stigmatization reflect the activation of this disease-avoidance system, which is prone to respond to visible signs and labels that connote disease, irrespective of their accuracy. A model of this system is presented, which includes an emotional component, whereby visible disease cues directly activate disgust and contamination, motivating avoidance, and a cognitive component, whereby disease labels bring to mind disease cues, indirectly activating disgust and contamination. The unique predictions of this model are then examined, notably that people who are stigmatized evoke disgust and are contaminating. That animals too show avoidance of diseased conspecifics, and that disease-related stigma targets are avoided in most cultures, also supports this evolutionary account. The more general implications of this approach are then examined, notably how it can be used to good (e.g. improving hygiene) or bad (e.g. racial vilification) ends, by yoking particular labels with cues that connote disease and disgust. This broadening of the model allows for stigmatization of groups with little apparent connection to disease.
Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences 12/2011; 366(1583):3433-52. · 6.40 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Medical conditions that are non-contagious, but that appear contagious, seem to result in the sufferer being avoided. Error management theory (EMT), suggests that such false alarms occur because the cost of infection poses a greater threat to ones fitness than avoidance. Study 1 attempted to demonstrate a disease-related false alarm effect by asking participants, to evaluate a series of vignettes, featuring people with infectious diseases, non-infectious diseases that looked infectious and non-infectious diseases that did not. Judgements of contracting infection under varying levels of contact, and desire to avoid were obtained. Consistent with EMT, a false alarm effect was evident. Study 2 examined the importance of the face as a key indicator of real and apparent infection, by determining whether facial symptoms result in a greater desire to avoid people with infectious and non-infectious diseases. Consistent with expectation, participants reported a greater desire to avoid people with facially displayed symptoms. Together, these results support the idea that humans have evolved a general tendency to avoid individuals with disease signs, especially if displayed upon the face. One consequence is that where a facially displayed disease sign persists, even if known to be benign, its bearer will experience chronic avoidance.
Psychology & Health 08/2011; 27(4):491-506. · 1.69 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Disgust motivates avoidance of pathogen sources, but whether its role in disease avoidance extends into activating the immune system is unexplored. This was tested here by comparing oral immune markers before and after a disgust induction, relative to neutral and negative induction control groups. The disgust group, but not controls, revealed an oral inflammatory response, with increased salivary tumor necrotizing factor alpha and albumin, as well as a down-regulation of immunoglobulin A (SIgA) secretion. It has been hypothesized that disgust evolved in animals to clear toxins from the oral cavity by gaping and increased salivary flow. Our data suggest down-regulated SIgA secretion may be a vestige of this response so as to conserve protein, while the inflammatory reaction may reflect an adaptive response to disease threat, selectively triggered by disgust. The broader implications of these data for a discrete neuro-gut-immune axis are examined.
Psychophysiology 12/2010; 48(7):900-7. · 3.29 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Little is known about when or how different disgust elicitors are acquired. In Study 1, parents of children (0-18 years old) rated how their child would react to 22 disgust elicitors. Different developmental patterns were identified for core, animal, and sociomoral elicitors, with core elicitors emerging first. In Study 2, children (2-16 years old) were exposed alone and then with their parent to a range of elicitors derived from Study 1. Self-report, behavioral, and facial expression data were obtained along with measures of contagion, conservation, and contamination. Convergent evidence supported the developmental patterns reported in Study 1. Evidence for parent-child transmission was also observed, with parents of young children emoting more disgust to their offspring and showing greater behavioral avoidance. Moreover, child reactivity to animal and sociomoral elicitors and contamination correlated with parental responsiveness. Finally, young children who failed to demonstrate contagion and conservation knowledge were as reactive to core elicitors and contamination as children of the same age who demonstrated such knowledge. These findings are interpreted within an evolutionary framework in which core disgust responses are acquired early to promote avoidance of pathogens.
Developmental Psychology 01/2010; 46(1):165-77. · 3.21 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: There is currently no general self-report measure for assessing hygiene behavior. This article details the development and testing of such a measure.
In studies 1 to 4, a total of 855 participants were used for scale and subscale development and for reliability and validity testing. The latter involved establishing the relationships between self-reported hygiene behavior and existing measures, hand hygiene behavior, illness rates, and a physiological marker of immune function. In study 5, a total of 507 participants were used to assess the psychometric properties of the final revised version of the scale.
The final 23-item scale comprised 5 subscales: general, household, food-related, handwashing technique, and personal hygiene. Studies 1 to 4 confirmed the scale's reliability and validity, and study 5 confirmed the scale's 5-factor structure.
The scale is potentially suitable for multiple uses, in various settings, and for experimental and correlational approaches.
American journal of infection control 05/2009; 37(7):557-64. · 3.01 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Many researchers have claimed that the emotion of disgust functions to protect us from disease. Although there have been several discussions of this hypothesis, none have yet reviewed the evidence in its entirety. The authors derive 14 hypotheses from a disease-avoidance account and evaluate the evidence for each, drawing upon research on pathogen avoidance in animals and empirical research on disgust. In all but 1 case, the evidence favors a disease-avoidance account. It is suggested that disgust is evoked by objects/people that possess particular types of prepared features that connote disease. Such simple disgust are directly disease related, are acquired during childhood, and are able to contaminate other objects/people. The complex disgust, which emerge later in development, may be mediated by several emotions. In these cases, violations of societal norms that may subserve a disease-avoidance function, notably relating to food and sex, act as reminders of simple disgust elicitors and thus generate disgust and motivate compliance. The authors find strong support for a disease-avoidance account and suggest that it offers a way to bridge the divide between concrete and ideational accounts of disgust.
Psychological Bulletin 04/2009; 135(2):303-21. · 14.46 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Many studies report that people have difficulty in evoking odor images. In this article, we explore whether this results from another commonly observed phenomenon, difficulty in naming odors. In Experiment 1, participants both named and attempted to imagine either odors or their common visual referents. More-difficult-to-name odors were reported as being more difficult to evoke as olfactory images, in comparison with the visual condition. In Experiment 2, participants received training prior to forming odor images and naming the same set of odors. As in Experiment 1, more-difficult-to-name odors were harder to imagine, but participants who had learned the odor names during training were significantly better, by their own report, at imagining many of these stimuli, relative to participants who were either exposed to the odors, exposed to their names, or who received no pretraining. In sum, these experiments suggest that odor naming may account for some of the difficulty reported by participants when attempting to evoke odor images; we discuss an associative basis for this effect.
Memory & Cognition 05/2007; 35(3):578-89. · 1.92 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The aim of the present studies was to investigate the relationship between primary and secondary control and the use of superstitious strategies under conditions of uncertainty and stress. In the first study, 78 participants completed a chance-determined card-guessing task in which they were permitted to use a psychic's card selections instead of making their own card selections. Participants' use of a superstitious strategy (a psychic's selections) increased significantly with the perceived likelihood of failure, regardless of belief in psychic ability. A second study (N= 102) replicated these findings using a skill task. Overall, these data suggest that as the need to control outcomes becomes increasingly salient, the use of superstitious strategies may represent attempts at secondary control.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology 07/2006; 34(4):848 - 871. · 0.63 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Olfaction's unique cognitive architecture, the apparently inconsistent evidence favoring imagery, and its difficulty of evocation have led some to conclude that there is no capacity for olfactory imagery. Using three streams of evidence, we examine the validity of this claim. First, self-reports of olfactory imagery can resemble those obtained for actual perception. Second, imagining an odor can produce effects similar to actual perception. Third, olfactory perception and memory-based images can interact. A model of olfactory imagery is then presented that utilizes the same systems employed in actual perception, with similar constraints. This model is consistent with olfaction's unique information-processing capacities and can account for previous experimental inconsistencies on the basis of difficulty of evocation, a consequence of unstable access to semantic information. In sum, the evidence presented here is favorable to the existence of an olfactory imagery capacity.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 05/2005; 12(2):244-64. · 2.61 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: In this experiment, the effects of prior experience on odour perception and discrimination were explored. Participants repeatedly sniffed a mixture composed of two odours, AX, as well as smelling two further odours alone, B and Y. After this training phase, participants were asked to rate the similarity of the odours A and X, B and Y, and a non-exposed pair C and Z. A and X were judged as significantly more alike than the other pairs. Exactly the same pattern emerged on a second test, in which participants were asked to select the odd odour out of sets of three. It was consistently harder for participants to pick the odd odour when the stimuli were drawn from the AX pair (eg A versus AX versus AX). Not only do these findings demonstrate that prior experience can affect odour perception, a finding not predicted by theories of odour perception based solely upon the physiochemical properties of odours, they also suggest that experience can act to selectively decrease discriminability.
Perception 02/2004; 33(1):113-9. · 1.31 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Stealing thunder refers to a dissuasion tactic in which an individual reveals potentially incriminating evidence first, for the purpose of reducing its negative impact on an evaluative audience. We examined whether it was necessary to frame the negative revelation in a manner that downplayed its importance, and found that stealing thunder successfully dissuaded mock jurors even without framing. We also sought to determine the mechanism by which stealing thunder operated, and found that stealing thunder led mock jurors to change the meaning of incriminating evidence to be less damaging to the individual. We also found that stealing thunder's effectiveness did not hinge on whether or not opposing counsel also mentioned the thunder evidence, and that the stealing thunder tactic was no longer effective when opposing counsel revealed to the mock jurors that the stealing thunder tactic had been used on them.
Law and Human Behavior 07/2003; 27(3):267-87. · 2.16 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Repeated exposure to a mixture of two odors can increase their perceived similarity to each other when presented separately. Experiment 1 failed to detect any reduction of this effect by an interference treatment consisting of separate exposures to the odors after they had first been presented as a mixture. Exposure to a mixture also results in participants mistakenly rating this mixture and its elements as having occurred with equal frequency (i.e., confusing the mixture and its elements). The interference treatment did not affect this either, whereas it did change judgments about the frequency of a color–odor mixture and its elements. The greater resistance to interference of odor–odor learning compared to color–odor learning may result from configural encoding of odor–odor mixtures. Experiment 2 found that separate exposures to two odors not previously mixed decreased their perceived similarity. This result was inconsistent with the possibility that the interference treatment in Experiment 1 had tended to increase the similarity of the two odors, for example, by a process of sensory adaptation. Rather it suggested a process akin to acquired distinctiveness.
Learning and Motivation.
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ABSTRACT: Olfactory memory is especially persistent. The current study explored whether this applies to a form of perceptual learning, in which experience of an odor mixture results in greater judged similarity between its elements. Experiment 1 A contrasted 2 forms of interference procedure, 'compound' (mixture AW, followed by presentation of new mixtures each containing 1 of its elements, AX and OW) and 'elemental' (mixture CY, followed by presentation of its elements C and Y) against a non exposed control. Learning was evident in both interference conditions to the same degree, relative to the control. Experiment 1 B established that the interference conditions did not significantly differ from uninterfered paired controls. Experiment 2 compared the 'compound' procedure with 2 exposed control conditions and assessed whether participants had acquired the interfering mixtures too (AX and OY). Learning was evident in the 'compound' treated pair (AW) and also for the mixtures AX and OW that made up the interfering compounds. These results are problematic for configural Elxplanations and a new formulation is suggested.
The Psychological Record.
