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Investigating Pain-Related Avoidance Behavior using a Robotic Arm-Reaching Paradigm
09:00

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Published on: October 3, 2020

Disease-avoidant behaviour and its consequences.

Daria Kouznetsova1, Richard J Stevenson, Megan J Oaten

  • 1Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.

Psychology & Health
|August 2, 2011
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Humans avoid those who appear contagious, even if non-infectious, due to error management theory (EMT). Facial symptoms strongly increase avoidance, impacting individuals with persistent benign conditions.

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Behavioral Science

Background:

  • Non-contagious conditions that mimic infectious diseases lead to social avoidance.
  • Error Management Theory (EMT) posits that avoiding potential infection, even falsely, is evolutionarily advantageous.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the 'false alarm' effect in disease perception.
  • To determine the role of facial symptoms in social avoidance of those with apparent disease.

Main Methods:

  • Study 1: Participants evaluated vignettes of individuals with infectious, seemingly infectious, and non-infectious diseases, assessing infection risk and avoidance.
  • Study 2: Assessed avoidance of individuals with infectious and non-infectious diseases, focusing on the impact of facial symptoms.

Main Results:

  • A 'false alarm' effect was observed, where non-infectious diseases appearing contagious elicited avoidance.
  • Facial symptoms significantly increased the desire to avoid individuals, regardless of actual contagiousness.

Conclusions:

  • Humans possess an evolved tendency to avoid individuals displaying disease cues, particularly on the face.
  • Persistent, benign facial symptoms can lead to chronic social avoidance due to this evolved mechanism.