Open AccessOutbreaks and Outgroups: Three Tests of the Relationship Between Disease Avoidance Motives and Xenophobia During an Emerging Pandemic
Author(s) -
James B. Moran,
Jin X. Goh,
Nicholas Kerry,
Damian R. Murray
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
evolutionary psychological science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2198-9885
DOI - 10.1007/s40806-021-00283-z
Subject(s) - xenophobia , psychology , outbreak , pandemic , covid-19 , social psychology , ingroups and outgroups , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty) , immigration , virology , political science , biology , law , medicine , pathology
Given the persistent threat posed by infectious disease throughout human history, people have a sophisticated suite of cognitive and behavioral strategies designed to mitigate exposure to disease vectors. Previous research suggests that one such strategy is avoidance of unfamiliar outgroup members. We thus examined the relationship between dispositional worry about disease and support for COVID-19-related travel bans across three preregistered studies ( N = 764) conducted at the outset of the pandemic in the United States and Singapore. Americans higher in Perceived Infectability were more supportive of travel bans, whereas Singaporeans higher in Germ Aversion were more supportive of travel bans. In Study 2, priming saliency of the pandemic increased support for travel bans from high (but not low) pandemic-risk countries. This prime did not increase general xenophobia. These results are consistent with threat-specific perspectives of outgroup avoidance, and provide an ecologically-valid test of the implications of perceived disease threat for policy-related attitudes and decision-making.