14 November 2020 | New Scientist | 45David Robson is the author of The
Intelligence Trap: Revolutionise your
thinking and make wiser decisions.
His website is davidrobson.meGiven the competition between our
behavioural immune system and our desire
for physical contact, it is little wonder that
many of us – including our leaders and
heads of state – have found it hard to navigate
the new social norms. Of course, human
behaviour is flexible and we are learning fast.
Whether these habits will stick, once
the immediate threat is over, remains an
open question. “It’s something that we’ll
have to watch in real time,” says Murray.
But he suspects that they could linger.
“Time and time again we see that
institutional requirements on behaviours
have changed underlying cultural norms,”
he says. He points out that it is now
considered morally objectionable to smoke
on a plane or to drive without wearing a
seat belt, for example – behaviours that
were once widely accepted. Likewise,
handshaking and hugging may come to
seem as inappropriate as poking someone
in the eye or grabbing their buttocks. ❚explain why we find it especially difficult
to avoid hugging or kissing our friends and
family. Research indicates that we are primed
to assume that people in our “in group” are
less likely to transmit diseases to us than
outsiders. In our evolutionary past, after all,
strangers were more likely to carry pathogens
we hadn’t encountered before. This means
that our intuitive sense of the risk of bodily
contact is much lower when we are among
friends and family members – even though
they are just as likely to be carrying the virus
responsible for covid-19 as anybody else.
The problem is compounded because these
are the people with whom we crave the most
physical contact to reaffirm our bonds.“ The threat of
disease seems to
have influenced
the greetings
adopted by
many cultures”
Basketball teams
that hug and
huddle more tend
to perform better
0 to 5. A handshake was rated as 2, a hug
was 3 and exchange of saliva in a kiss or
“spit shake” scored 5. They found a small
but significant correlation between these
ratings and the local pathogen prevalence.
Where the risk is high, people have evolved
distanced greetings that symbolically convey
the wish for cooperation and trust, says
Murray. Similarly, the researchers found that
romantic kissing – previously considered
to be universal – was absent from 58 per cent
of the societies that had above-average
pathogen prevalence. “They balance
the costs of physical contact versus the
benefits,” says Murray.
These findings chime with other research
on the “behavioural immune system” – the
idea that part of our defence against infection
is an evolved tendency to adapt our actions
in response to a threat. Studies reveal that
the mere thought of disease can influence
our attitudes and interactions with others.
For example, people are less likely to exhibit
extraverted behaviours when they are more
conscious of the risk of infection. “Just like
physical contact, extended social contact is
associated with a higher threat of contracting
disease,” says Murray.
The behavioural immune system may also
DE
RICK^ E.^ HI
NGLE-USA^ TODAY
SPOR
TS/REUT
ER
S