Of Germs and Culture; Parasite Stress as the Origin of Individualism-Collectivism

Abstract

Among four proposed origins of individualism-collectivism, modernization theory, rice versus wheat theory, climato-economic theory, and pathogen stress theory, the latter has gained more attention in cross-cultural and evolutionary psychology. Since the parasite stress theory of values and sociality makes a connection between infectious diseases and cultural orientations, it gained even more popularity during the COVID pandemic. But despite extensive research on parasite stress theory, it is not still clear what kind of infectious disease contributes more to the emergence of cultures, what are the possible mechanisms through which pathogenic threat gives rise to cultural systems, and how parasite stress might affect vertical vs. horizontal dimensions of individualism-collectivism. This review summarizes and integrates major findings of parasite stress theory related to individualism-collectivism and its closely related variables and discusses future directions that researchers can take to answer the remaining questions.

Cultural values and changes in happiness in 78 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of data from the World Happiness Reports

“…Though various definitions of culture have been proposed, Hofstede has conceptualized cultural values as “software of the mind” which are not biologically determined, but have evolved in response to environmental and human challenges in a historically contingent manner ( Hofstede et al, 2010 ). In fact, there is evidence that past outbreaks of infectious disease may have influenced the development of specific cultural values: regions with a higher burden of such diseases may have “evolved” a more collectivist orientation in order to cope more effectively with them ( Fincher et al, 2008 ; Shapouri, 2022 ). However, most research in this field has focused on Individualism–Collectivism and not on other dimensions of culture that may be equally or even more important in influencing the behavioral and psychological responses to a large-scale crisis.…”

Collectivistic orientation moderates the effect of personal control on evaluations of societal disease‐control measures: During and beyond the COVID‐19 crisis in China

“…Collectivistic orientation moderates the effect of personal control on evaluations of societal disease-control measures: During and beyond the COVID-19 crisis in China Nan Zhu 1 | Yang Li 2 | Lei Chang 1 DI SE A SE CON T ROL From an adaptive functional perspective, the psychological foundation for societal disease control is likely culturally shaped to fit the local ecological condition. In particular, a possible adaptive function of collectivistic values (e.g., ingroup loyalty, strong family ties, obedience rather than self-reliance) is to coordinate collective actions to minimize infections of novel pathogens in regions with high disease stress (Fincher & Thornhill, 2012;Shapouri, 2023). Cross-cultural comparisons provided some (but not unequivocal) support for this view (Cashdan & Steele, 2013;Fincher & Thornhill, 2012; reviewed by Shapouri, 2023).…”

“…Detailed discussions of the background of the 2022 Shanghai lockdown and its psychological impacts are included in the supplementary file Data S1 in the Supporting Information. Despite these concerns about the detrimental effects of draconian disease-control measures, people also worried that relaxing these measures would bring about disastrous consequences given the low natural immunity, diminishing effectiveness of vaccines, and low per capita medical resources among the Chinese population (Shepherd & Chiang, 2022). Overall, our investigation was partly based on this special societal background, which provides a unique opportunity to examine the roles of psychological collectivism and personal control on attitudes toward societal disease-control measures.…”

“…In particular, a possible adaptive function of collectivistic values (e.g., ingroup loyalty, strong family ties, obedience rather than self‐reliance) is to coordinate collective actions to minimize infections of novel pathogens in regions with high disease stress (Fincher & Thornhill, 2012; Shapouri, 2023). Cross‐cultural comparisons provided some (but not unequivocal) support for this view (Cashdan & Steele, 2013; Fincher & Thornhill, 2012; reviewed by Shapouri, 2023). For example, research has found that historical (but not contemporary) pathogen prevalence at the regional level significantly predicted collectivistic orientation (Fincher et al., 2008), various indicators of conformity (Murray et al., 2011), and endorsement of group‐focused moral concerns (e.g., loyalty toward ingroups, respect for authorities; Van Leeuwen et al., 2012), all of which are conceptually linked to collectivism and might facilitate societal disease‐control efforts.…”

“…Indeed, there is evidence of cross‐society and within‐society variations in people's faith in or compliance with disease‐control policies, likely mediated by their cultural orientations (Chen et al., 2021; Maaravi et al., 2021; Xiao, 2021). In particular, a collectivistic orientation might be conducive to social norms and cognitive tendencies that facilitate societal disease control (Shapouri, 2023) and might affect the balance between concerns for personal autonomy and societal disease‐control efforts (Zhu et al., 2021).…”