The Infectiousness of Crowds: Crowding Experiences Are Amplified by Pathogen Threats

Abstract

People sometimes perceive social environments as unpleasantly crowded. Previous work has linked these experiences to incidental factors such as being hungry or hot and to the relevance of the social environment for an individual's current goals. Here, we demonstrate that crowding perceptions and evaluations also depend on specific, active threats for perceivers. Eight studies test whether infectious disease threats, which are associated with crowded conditions, increase such reactions. Across studies, pathogen threat made dense social environments seem more crowded and generated more negative affect toward these environments. These perceptions and negative feelings were more influenced by pathogen threat relative to other threats of physical danger. Finally, reactions to pathogen threat affected people's choice of crowded versus uncrowded environments to inhabit. This research suggests that interpretations of social environments depend on the unique threats and opportunities those environments afford to individuals.

Understanding the COVID-19 tourist psyche: The Evolutionary Tourism Paradigm

“…Previous evolutionary-based research has noted that perceptions of and attitudes toward crowding vary depending on which fundamental motive is activated. For example, the affiliation motive has been linked to a preference for crowded retail spaces as a way of getting closer to others ( Thomas & Saenger, 2019 ), while the activation of the behavioral immune system increases people's perceptions of crowding and the feeling of negative affect toward such environments ( Wang & Ackerman, 2019 ). The latter finding has been explained as an adaptive way of avoiding disease as the risk of contracting a disease is higher in crowded environments ( Wang & Ackerman, 2019 ).…”

Capturing Fluctuations in Pathogen Avoidance: the Situational Pathogen Avoidance Scale

“…That subscale assesses cognitions about one’s perceived likelihood of becoming ill. Although perceived infectability is a relevant construct in the pathogen avoidance literature, it does not tend to predict social avoidance outcomes as consistently or powerfully as does germ aversion (e.g., Brown et al 2019 ; Makhanova et al 2019 ; Wang and Ackerman 2019 ). Moreover, similar to the construct of germ aversion, the focus of the SPA scale is to assess people’s affective and behavioral reactions to social situations that are associated with increased contagion risk.…”

Testing the motivational tradeoffs between pathogen avoidance and status acquisition

“…These cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses identify pathogenic threats prior to one coming into direct contact with them (Murray & Schaller, 2016). Responses include heightened reticence (Mortensen, Becker, Ackerman, Neuberg, & Kenrick, 2010), reduced affiliative interest (Sacco, Young, & Hugenberg, 2014), and perceiving social congregations as threatening (Wang & Ackerman, 2019).…”