Human sickness detection is not dependent on cultural experience

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary biology
• Social psychology
• Human behavior

Background:

• Animals detect infection cues in conspecifics to reduce contamination risk.
• Human ability to detect sickness cues in unfamiliar out-groups remains largely unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if humans can detect sickness cues in individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds.
• To determine if cultural experience influences the accuracy of sickness detection.

Main Methods:

• Western faces were photographed 2 hours after experimental induction of an acute immune response.
• Participants from Western and five non-Western communities (hunter-gatherer and urban) viewed these faces.
• Performance in detecting sickness was compared across different cultural groups.

Main Results:

• All participating communities successfully detected sick individuals.
• Western participants were not consistently better than non-Western participants in sickness detection.
• Most non-Western communities showed unbiased performance, contrary to expectations of caution towards out-groups.

Conclusions:

• Subtle cues indicating a general immune response are recognizable across diverse human cultures.
• Cross-cultural recognition of sickness cues may facilitate the detection of infectious threats.
• Sickness detection abilities are not limited by cultural in-group/out-group biases.