Supplementary material from "Explaining illness with evil: pathogen prevalence fosters moral vitalism"
Posted on 2019-10-11 - 16:58
Pathogens represent a significant threat to human health leading to the emergence of strategies designed to help manage their negative impact. We examined how spiritual beliefs developed to explain and predict the devastating effects of pathogens and spread of infectious disease. Analysis of existing data in Studies 1 and 2 suggests that moral vitalism (beliefs about spiritual forces of evil) is higher in geographical regions characterized by historical higher levels of pathogens. Furthermore, drawing on a sample of 3140 participants from 28 countries in Study 3, we found that historical higher levels of pathogens were associated with stronger endorsement of moral vitalistic beliefs. Furthermore, endorsement of moral vitalistic beliefs statistically mediated the previously reported relationship between pathogen prevalence and conservative ideologies, suggesting these beliefs reinforce behavioural strategies which function to prevent infection. We conclude that moral vitalism may be adaptive: by emphasizing concerns over contagion, it provided an explanatory model that enabled human groups to reduce rates of contagious disease.
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Bastian, Brock; Vauclair, Christin-Melanie; Loughnan, Steve; Bain, Paul; Ashokkumar, Ashwini; Becker, Maja; et al. (2019). Supplementary material from "Explaining illness with evil: pathogen prevalence fosters moral vitalism". The Royal Society. Collection. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4695755.v1
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AUTHORS (33)
BB
Brock Bastian
CV
Christin-Melanie Vauclair
SL
Steve Loughnan
PB
Paul Bain
AA
Ashwini Ashokkumar
MB
Maja Becker
MB
Michał Bilewicz
EC
Emma Collier-Baker
CC
Carla Crespo
PE
Paul W. Eastwick
RF
Ronald Fischer
MF
Malte Friese
ÁG
Ángel Gómez
VG
Valeschka M. Guerra
JG
José Luis Castellanos Guevara
KH
Katja Hanke
NH
Nic Hooper
LH
Li-Li Huang
SJ
Shi Junqi
MK
Minoru Karasawa