Linking anger and disgust to motives and anticipations of aggression in the East: testing a socio-functional account of moral emotions in Japan Lei Fan, Catherine Molho, Florian van Leeuwen, Hirotaka Imada, Joshua M. Tybur Published on Cognition and Emotion Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2025.2572709 ABSTRACT Anger and disgust often underlie responses to social transgressions, yet their links to […]
Invited Talk – Guangxi Normal University 广西师范大学
微观人际价值视角下的行为免疫双边互动 Micro-level Interpersonal Motives and the Dual Dynamics of Behavioral Immunity 独秀创新讲坛 Duxiu Innovation Talk Series 经典理论认为,行为免疫系统(BIS)是一套引导接触与社交决策的心理机制,用以降低感染风险。但现实研究对其中一些核心假设提出了挑战,尤其是在群际层面。基于新冠疫情期间的两项纵向追踪和一项跨文化注册研究,我们发现:无论是环境中可感知的疾病威胁,还是外群体线索,这些传统上被视为关键的因素,并未稳定地引发回避或排外。相反,真正的调节机制来自微观的人际价值。人们更愿意为亲密或高价值对象承担风险,而更倾向于回避低价值或不可信对象。纵向数据同样表明,人们对“共享微生物式”风险接触(如近距离、共用品)的舒适度,更取决于对方是谁,而非疫情曲线。重要的是,这种调节不仅存在于健康个体,感染者的行为也会进行镜像的调整:面对高价值关系对象,他们更少隐瞒,甚至更可能主动披露病情。总体而言,感染风险的调控是关系性的、动态的,由避免感染、防止被利用、减少排斥和寻求照料等多种社会动机共同塑造。传染因此是一个双边互动过程:健康个体主要调节回避,感染个体主要调节隐瞒或披露,双方以不同方式权衡社会价值决定行为。这个双主体视角将 BIS 从单纯的病原反应机制重塑为嵌入社会关系的动机系统,并提示需要与生理免疫(PIS)相结合。我们的后续研究以肠–脑通路为切入口,探讨生物状态与社会动机如何共同塑造与疾病相关的行为与互动。 Classic accounts characterize the behavioral immune system (BIS) as a set of psychological processes guiding contact and social decisions to reduce behavioral exposure to pathogens, yet real-world evidence challenges several of its core predictions. Across longitudinal […]
Invited Talk – University of Oslo
Beyond the Ewwwww: Micro-level Interpersonal Motives and the Dual Dynamics of Behavioral Immunity Classic accounts characterize the behavioral immune system (BIS) as a set of psychological processes guiding contact and social decisions to reduce behavioral exposure to pathogens, yet real-world evidence challenges several of its core predictions. Across longitudinal studies during the COVID-19 pandemic and […]
Conference Talk – HBES 2025
Extending Behavioral Immune Trade-Offs: Interpersonal Value in Disease Avoidance and Social Interactions Rooted in Behavioral Immune System (BIS) theory, this research line investigates how interpersonal value shapes social interactions—particularly infection-risky contact, disease concealment, and xenophobia—under high disease salience. Three projects were conducted. The first (three studies, N = 1,694) used U.S. samples to test whether […]
New Article Online: Comfort with microbe-sharing contact across the COVID-19 pandemic: testing behavioral immune system predictions
Comfort with microbe-sharing contact across the COVID-19 pandemic: testing behavioral immune system predictions Hongyu Sun, Lei Fan, Joshua M. Tybur Published on Evolution and Human Behavior Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106710 Abstract Theory within the behavioral immune system literature suggests that pathogen-avoidance adaptations should lead to increased contact avoidance under conditions of increased disease salience. The current study examined this hypothesis by assessing […]
Conference Talk – DPSA 2024
Social class in the mind’s eye: Mental representations, egalitarianism, and discrimination Motivation: Recent declines in explicit bias have, unfortunately, not been accompanied by substantial reductions in group-based inequality. This suggests that implicit biases—relatively unconscious, automatic judgments—may play powerful roles in reinforcing existing social inequalities. The current work examines implicit biases through the lens of social […]
Conference Talk – CBEN 2024
Social class in the mind’s eye: Mental representations, egalitarianism, and discrimination Motivation: Recent declines in explicit bias have, unfortunately, not been accompanied by substantial reductions in group-based inequality. This suggests that implicit biases—relatively unconscious, automatic judgments—may play powerful roles in reinforcing existing social inequalities. The current work examines implicit biases through the lens of social […]
New Article Online:Salience of infectious diseases did not increase xenophobia during the COVID-19 pandemic
Salience of infectious diseases did not increase xenophobia during the COVID-19 pandemic Lei Fan, Joshua M. Tybur, Paul A. M. Van Lange Published on Evolutionary Human Sciences https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2024.28 Multiple proposals suggest that xenophobia increases when infectious disease threats are salient. The current longitudinal study tested this hypothesis by examining whether and how anti-immigrant sentiments varied […]
Conference Talk – CEPDISC 2024
Outgroup Equals Infectiousness? Re-Evaluating the Pathogen Avoidance Account of Xenophobia Xenophobia is thought to emerge, in part, from the behavioral immune system. We conducted two studies—a longitudinal study and an experiment—to test this hypothesis from two different perspectives. The longitudinal study, assessed at four time points of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands—May 2020, N1 […]
Conference Talk – HBES 2024
Outrage in Moral Punishments: The Dual Dynamics of Anger and Disgust in Personal Experience and Social Signaling Exploring the emotional landscape in moral punishments, two projects examine the roles of anger and disgust in responses to moral transgressions, through perspectives of personal experience and social signaling. The first project, with two studies (N’s = 908, […]