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Pathogens, Personality, and Culture: Disease Prevalence Predicts Worldwide Variability in Sociosexuality, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience

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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
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Mark Schaller
Mark Schaller
Mark Schaller
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Damian R Murray at University of British Columbia
Damian R Murray
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Abstract

Previous research has documented cross-cultural differences in personality traits, but the origins of those differences remain unknown. The authors investigate the possibility that these cultural differences can be traced, in part, to regional differences in the prevalence in infectious diseases. Three specific hypotheses are deduced, predicting negative relationships between disease prevalence and (a) unrestricted sociosexuality, (b) extraversion, and (c) openness to experience. These hypotheses were tested empirically with methods that employed epidemiological atlases in conjunction with personality data collected from individuals in dozens of countries worldwide. Results were consistent with all three hypotheses: In regions that have historically suffered from high levels of infectious diseases, people report lower mean levels of sociosexuality, extraversion, and openness. Alternative explanations are addressed, and possible underlying mechanisms are discussed.
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Pathogens, Personality, and Culture: Disease Prevalence Predicts
Worldwide Variability in Sociosexuality, Extraversion, and Openness to
Experience
Mark Schaller and Damian R. Murray
University of British Columbia
Previous research has documented cross-cultural differences in personality traits, but the origins of those
differences remain unknown. The authors investigate the possibility that these cultural differences can be
traced, in part, to regional differences in the prevalence in infectious diseases. Three specific hypotheses
are deduced, predicting negative relationships between disease prevalence and (a) unrestricted sociosex-
uality, (b) extraversion, and (c) openness to experience. These hypotheses were tested empirically with
methods that employed epidemiological atlases in conjunction with personality data collected from
individuals in dozens of countries worldwide. Results were consistent with all three hypotheses: In
regions that have historically suffered from high levels of infectious diseases, people report lower mean
levels of sociosexuality, extraversion, and openness. Alternative explanations are addressed, and possible
underlying mechanisms are discussed.
Keywords: culture, disease prevalence, extraversion, openness to experience, sociosexuality
People’s personalities differ, and some of that individual vari-
ability is geographically clumped. But why is that so? How are we
to understand the origins of regional differences in personality? A
complete response to that question will surely require attention to
many different processes operating at different levels of analysis.
Here, we focus on one previously unidentified contributor to those
differences. We report empirical results indicating that specific
kinds of cross-cultural differences in personality result, in part,
from regional differences in the prevalence of infectious disease.
Cross-Cultural Differences in Personality
In recent years, several ambitious programs of research have
collected data from dozens of countries worldwide as a means of
documenting cross-cultural differences on various kinds of per-
sonality traits. These investigations assessed personality traits at
the individual level of analysis, with standard trait assessment
instruments, and on the basis of these data computed mean trait
scores at the regional level of analysis.
For example, Schmitt (2005) and his collaborators in the Inter-
national Sexuality Description Project assessed worldwide vari-
ability in chronic tendencies toward either a “restricted” or “unre-
stricted” sociosexual style. (Among other things, more highly
unrestricted individuals seek more sexual variety, are more com-
fortable with casual sexual encounters, and have more sexual
partners across their lifetime.) The results document considerable
regional variability on this trait. In addition, several international
teams of researchers have assessed worldwide variability along the
Big Five personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness,
extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience (McCrae,
2002; McCrae, Terracciano, & 79 members of the Personality
Profiles of Cultures Project, 2005; Schmitt et al., 2007). The
results document regional differences along all five fundamental
dimensions of personality.
These results, and others like them, are invaluable assets to the
scientific study of individual differences and culture. Newer in-
vestigations have been addressing the consequences that these
cultural differences may have (e.g., on health outcomes and social
policy decisions; McCrae & Terracciano, 2008). To date, however,
almost no research whatsoever has addressed why these worldwide
differences in personality profiles exist in the first place.
Psychology, Ecology, and the Origins of Culture
Many factors may have contributed to cross-cultural differences
in personality. Some of those causes may be idiosyncratic to the
unique histories of specific populations. Although important, anal-
yses of idiosyncratic circumstances don’t easily yield conclusions
that are predictive on a more global scale. It is toward discovering
a more complete (and more broadly predictive) explanation for the
origins of cross-cultural differences that it is useful to consider
how basic human tendencies, operating in conjunction with vary-
ing ecological conditions, can produce cross-cultural differences
Mark Schaller and Damian R. Murray, Department of Psychology,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
This research was supported by research grants from the University of
British Columbia Hampton Fund and the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada. Thanks to Emma Buchtel, Steve Heine, and
Ara Norenzayan for helpful comments and suggestions. Thanks also to
Robert McCrae, Antonio Terracciano, and their collaborators on the Per-
sonality Profiles of Cultures Project for generously providing us with the
opportunity to do secondary analyses on their facet-level findings prior to
the publication of those findings.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mark
Schaller, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136
West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. E-mail:
schaller@psych.ubc.ca
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyright 2008 by the American Psychological Association
2008, Vol. 95, No. 1, 212–221 0022-3514/08/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.95.1.212
212
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... This claim is supported by the finding that Openness to Experience is lower within populations of countries with higher rates of infectious diseases (r = -.59; Schaller and Murray, 2008). However, while a negative relationship between Openness to Experience and Disgust was found in a sample of 132 undergraduate students in the United States (Haidt et al., 1994), this result was not replicated in an Italian sample (Giampietro et al., 2019). ...
... Research had found that people are more likely to be lower in Openness to Experience within countries that have higher levels of disease prevalence (Schaller & Murray, 2008). The results here suggest that this relationship may be due to other factors outside Disgust sensitivity. ...
Investigating the Relationships Between Basic Emotions and the Big Five Personality Traits and their Sub-Traits
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IntroductionMost research investigating relationships between the Big Five and emotional states has focused on how emotional attributes relate to Extraversion and Neuroticism. However, the potential for discrete emotional states to enable a richer understanding of the emotive nature of all Big Five traits and their sub-traits has been neglected.Methods Participants (N = 203) completed the Big Five Aspects Scale, watched six emotionally stimulating video clips, and self-reported their experience of basic emotions before (Baseline) and after (Reaction) each video. Spearman correlations identified state-trait relationships, followed by regression analyses to assess the unique contribution of each trait to emotional experiences.Results Conscientiousness negatively correlated with Baseline Sadness, while Agreeableness positively correlated with Reaction Disgust, Fear, and Sadness. Extraversion predicted higher Joy, and Neuroticism was linked to greater Fear and Sadness.Conclusion Findings reinforce Extraversion and Neuroticism’s links to positive and negative emotionality, respectively, while also showing that Agreeableness predicts heightened sensitivity to negative affect. Conscientiousness, particularly Orderliness, appears protective against Baseline Sadness, and Openness to Experience, especially Intellect, is linked to lower sensitivity to Surprise. Potential mechanisms underlying these relationships are discussed.Keywords: Personality, Emotion, Basic Emotions, Five Factor Model, Big Five Aspects Scale
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... However, there are results that show that state-dependent models are indeed plausible. The data suggests that the behavior guided by lower openness and extraversion may be more adaptive in countries with higher prevalence of infective diseases (Schaller & Murray, 2008). Environments affected by violent intergroup conflicts moderate the link between personality and mating, highlighting the adaptive role of extraversion and emotional stability (Međedović, 2018b). ...
... This process exists even in preindustrial populations where fitness benefits of personality characteristics depend on the specific locations where individuals live (Gurven et al., 2014). Fitness outcomes of personality may also be dependent upon the incidence of pathogens in a given population (Schaller & Murray, 2008). The variation in selection gradients on personality (i.e., regression slopes) that we obtained in the present data are in accordance with environmentally-driven state-dependent models of personality evolution. ...
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... Other research shows that chronic concerns with disease-and experimental manipulations of disease threat-predict prejudice towards novel cultures (Faulkner et al., 2004;Hodson & Costello, 2007;McGovern et al., 2024) or towards immigrants who refuse to assimilate into ingroup cultural norms (Karinen et al., 2019; though cultural neophobia may be better predicted by other non-disease-related motivational systems, e.g., Kerry et al., 2020). Experimentally priming disease threat leads to greater risk aversion (Prokosch et al., 2019), and at the cross-cultural level, actual levels of disease threat are negatively associated with Openness to Experience (Schaller & Murray, 2008)-the Big Five personality trait most strongly associated with novelty seeking and risk taking (Gocłowska et al., 2019;Lauriola & Levin, 2001). Given the implications of disease threat for people's novelty aversion and cautiousness, aversion toward unfamiliar food sources may have an especially strong relationship with disease transmission concerns. ...
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... The level of students with good immunity impacts students' ability to produce more literacy programs compared to extrovert students with low immunity levels. This is in line with theoretical analyzes showing that individual differences in the strength of the biological immune response can be associated with individual differences in personality traits that function as behavioral immune responses (Schaller & Murray, 2008;Thornhill et al., 2010;Schaller, 2011;Mengelkoch et al., 2022;Namaziandost et al., 2023). According to this theoretical approach, individuals who have relatively weak biological immune responses are hypothesized to exhibit stronger behavioral immune responses such as avoidance of strangers, reduced exploratory behaviors, and greater exploratory behaviors. ...
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... 9 The prevalence of infectious diseases has been linked to cross-cultural differences between regions, 10,11 which span from gastronomic variations 12 to distinctions of personality traits. 13 Of relevance for this secondary analysis, poor self-reported health was found in individuals not only with chronic diseases 14,15 but also among those with infectious diseases. 16 Self-reported health is a general health indicator widely used in public health studies. ...
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... In this study, fear is assumed to be a driver for human control actions; so, other fear-control relationships are not within the scope of this work (e.g., large fear may cause stigma, reducing or delaying control efforts in some individuals [47]). Future studies could explore what types of social media, what kinds of educational programs, and what other psychosocial characteristics (e.g., personality [48,49], personal concerns [50], risk-prone or -averse behavior [51], rebellious mentality [52,53], social networks [54]) may produce equal or even opposite effects on the public's control actions beyond fear emotion. ...
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