Avoidance of disease

Throughout evolution, contagious diseases have been a fatal threat to humans and other species.

Research suggests that behavioral avoidance of sick individuals is the first, and probably most cost effective, line of defense against infection.

Indeed, substantial disease containing effects can be demonstrated from small adaptations in patterns of inter-individual contact.

On the other hand, considering the high cost of being sick, the behavioral defense is prone to false alarm which is hypothesized to yield many consequences beyond the avoidance itself, such as prejudice against individuals with non-infectious cues leading to outgroup discrimination (cf., homophobia, racism, and neophobia).

Beyond these social consequences, psychiatric disorders such as health anxiety disorder may follow when this behavioral defense is hyperactive. The proposed research aims to determine basic mechanisms of disease avoidance.

More specifically, we investigate neural, affective (e.g., disgust) and cognitive underpinnings of disease avoidance, and its effects of disease cues on social affect and values. These mechanisms of a behavioral defense are also investigated from the perspective of understanding health anxiety.

This novel and interdisciplinary research program will thus gain understanding of the basic elements and consequences of our behavioral defense against disease; the behavioral repertoire that helps us stay alive.