Contamination Appraisals, Pollution Beliefs, and the Role of Cultural Inheritance in Shaping Disease Avoidance Behavior

Abstract

Despite the upsurge of research on disgust, the implications of this research for the investigation of cultural pollution beliefs has yet to be adequately explored. In particular, the sensitivity of both disgust and pollution to a common set of elicitors (e.g., bodily emissions, disease, and death) suggests a common psychological basis, though several obstacles have prevented an integrative account, including methodological differences between the relevant disciplines. Employing a conciliatory framework that embraces both naturalistic (evolutionary) and humanistic levels of explanation, this article examines the dynamic reciprocal process by which contamination/contagion appraisals in individuals serve to shape-and are in turn shaped by-culture-specific pollution beliefs. This complex interrelationship is illustrated by examining ancient Near Eastern and modern ethnographic documentation of pollution beliefs, highlighting the underappreciated function of these pollution beliefs as folk theories for the spread of infectious disease. By evaluating how pollution beliefs (as also modern germ theory) shape contamination appraisals in individuals, it will be argued that cultural inheritance has played a much larger role in guiding disease avoidance behavior than has been previously recognized.

Do fear and perceived knowledge of Covid-19 drive sustainable consumption behaviour in Muslims? The mediating role of religiosity

“…Theories about fear appeals explain the role of fear in motivating people to adopt specific behaviour (Witte and Allen, 2000) and influencing how they think about themselves and feel about or react to others in society (Bavel et al, 2020). Likewise, the fear of infection is considered an essential element of contamination appraisal in disease-avoidance behaviour (Feder, 2016). Literature supports that people cope with fear through different strategies, including religiosity (Pargament, 1998;Siegel et al, 2001), preventive and adaptive consumption behaviours (Nepomuceno and Laroche, 2016;Pavia and Mason, 2004;Taylor et al, 2020).…”

Memories of Utopia

“…It is an emotion that is, in essence, morally encoded ( Strohminger and Kumar 2018 ). To put it in very simple terms, while what triggers disgust (together with the behaviour that disgust activates) is culturally determined-a matter of nurture ( Feder 2016a )-the cognition of disgust is common across cultures-a matter of evolution or how the brain is wired ( Rottman et al 2018 ). The emotion is associated with the activation of a reflexive moral judgement at the preconscious level in the brain, which the individual may rationalise after the fact, but of the source of which this same individual is usually unaware .…”

“…In a series of recent articles Feder explores at length how, in Mediterranean Near-Eastern cultures, physical contagion as a result of contaminants like dirt, faeces, or corpses became intuitively and cognitively linked to concepts of pollution, sanctity/purity, and desecration ( Feder 2013( Feder , 2016a( Feder , 2016b. Of particular interest is his investigation of the associated development of religious systems of purificatory and avoidance responses, even when the perceived contagion was no longer literal.…”

“…Each society develops a 'pollution theory,' which informs culturally conditioned ways of viewing contamination and culturally specific ritualised actions and responses. That is, while contamination avoidance or disease avoidance is a commonly evolved human behaviour, the pollution beliefs linked to that response are culturally variable ( Feder 2016a ). Feder argues for a feedback loop between individual (gut-level) contamination appraisals and (rationalised) collective pollution beliefs or theories to the point that the latter themselves can become automatic within a particular culture or society.…”

“…Feder argues for a feedback loop between individual (gut-level) contamination appraisals and (rationalised) collective pollution beliefs or theories to the point that the latter themselves can become automatic within a particular culture or society. It is those pollution theories that 'will define whether contact with a contaminant (e.g., excrement, corpses) is inherently dangerous, or whether this threat is restricted to a particular (e.g., religious) context, and they will also suggest the means by which this contamination can be removed (purification)' ( Feder 2016a( Feder : 1577.…”