AN EYE FOR DISGUST: EXAMINING HOW RESPONSES TO PATHOGEN CUES VARY ACROSS INDIVIDUALS AND CONTEXTS

Paola Perone

Research output: PhD ThesisPhD-Thesis - Research and graduation internal

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Abstract

The present dissertation focused on better understanding the information processing underlying the behavioural immune system - a suite of psychological mechanisms that infer infection risk from perceptual cues and trigger avoidance of contact when risk is detected. Particularly, it was aimed to illuminate how individual- and contextual-level factors influence this processing. Results from the three empirical chapters reported in this dissertation suggest that the processing of pathogen cues might be encapsulated from state- and trait-level pathogen avoidance motivations. Those motivations, though, seem to play a role in the activation of the final responses generated to prevent pathogen contact. A possible explanation for this set of results might be that context- and trait-level pathogen avoidance motives are processed in parallel to the processing of pathogen cues, and are only affecting the final response initiated by adjusting the response outputted from the behavioural immune system.
Original languageEnglish
QualificationPhD
Awarding Institution
  • Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Tybur, Joshua, Supervisor
  • van Lange, Paul, Co-supervisor
Award date13 Jun 2022
Print ISBNs9789464217506
Publication statusPublished - 13 Jun 2022

Keywords

  • Behavioral Immune System, Disgust, Pathogens, Emotion, Attentional bias

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