Aarhus University Seal

The Political Psychology of Pathogen Avoidance

Talk by Michael Bang Petersen and Lene Aarøe, Dept. Political Science, Aarhus University

Info about event

Time

Tuesday 26 January 2016,  at 11:00 - 13:00

Location

IMC Meeting Room, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, Building 1483-312

Organizer

Andreas

Abstract:

Infectious disease has represented a fundamental threat to humans across our evolutionary history.  Through natural selection the immune system has evolved to protect humans against pathogens.  Some of these protective mechanisms are biological, others are behavioral. In this talk, we investigate how the immune system calibrates social and political cognition using physiological, experimental and suvey data collected in Denmark and the US. First, we integrate insights from biology and psychology to understand people’s perceptions of and attitudes towards other people including salient political groups such as immigrants. We argue that behavioral motivations to avoid pathogens lead many people to non-consciously tag people in general and ethnically different groups in particular as potential pathogen hosts and trigger avoidance and opposition. Second, we demonstrate how these motivations shape political ideology and partisanship in modern democracies.  Third, we discuss the possible linkages between these behavioral pathogen defense mechanisms, the biological immune system, and political psychology.

For more information, please contact:

Professor Michael Bang Petersen

Associate Professor Lene Aarøe