In defense of pathogen disgust and disease avoidance: a response to Tybur et al. (2015)

The behavioral immune system (BIS) is a set of psychological mechanisms that evolved to serve a disease-avoidance function (Schaller, 2006). As other people are a primary source of disease transmission, the BIS plays a role in the development of social attitudes and beliefs. In particular, considerable evidence has demonstrated that the BIS is associated with higher levels of social conservatism (see Terrizzi, Shook, & McDaniel, 2013, for a review). Recently, Tybur and colleagues (2015) have argued that the BIS is only indirectly associated with social conservatism through sexual strategies. In this commentary, we outline several theoretical, methodological, and data analytic problems with the Tybur et al. (2015) paper. We also present empirical evidence that refutes the proposed model, demonstrating a direct link between the BIS and social conservatism, even after accounting for sexual strategies.