Definition
Pathogen risk refers to the danger presented by microorganisms that cause disease.
Introduction
There is a clear evolutionary opportunity for a pathogenic or parasitic existence, living at the expense of nutrient-rich, warm, renewable hosts. These advantages are reflected by the number and variety of infectious organisms that are pathogenic to humans alone, with a comprehensive literature review identifying 1415 species (Taylor et al. 2001). These pathogens can be divided into five major taxonomic divisions: 15% are viruses (including prions), 38% bacteria (including rickettsia), 22% are fungi, 5% are protozoa, and 20% are helminths (Taylor et al. 2001). To further illustrate the appeal of a host environment, nonpathogenic bacteria (distinguished from pathogens by lack of host-damage) far outnumber human cells within our bodies (Rohmer et al. 2011). While nonpathogenic bacteria are tolerated by...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Buckels, E. E., & Trapnell, P. D. (2013). Disgust facilitates outgroup dehumanization. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430212471738.
Chapman, H. A., & Anderson, A. K. (2014). Trait physical disgust is related to moral judgments outside of the purity domain. Emotion, 14(2), 341–348. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035120.
Fincher, C. L., Thornhill, R., Murray, D. R., & Schaller, M. (2008). Pathogen prevalence predicts human cross-cultural variability in individualism/collectivism. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 275(1640), 1279–1285. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.0094.
Fumagalli, M., Sironi, M., Pozzoli, U., Ferrer-Admettla, A., Pattini, L., & Nielsen, R. (2011). Signatures of environmental genetic adaptation pinpoint pathogens as the main selective pressure through human evolution. PLoS Genetics, 7(11), e1002355. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1002355.
Gangestad, S., Haselton, M., & Buss, D. (2006). TARGET ARTICLE: Evolutionary foundations of cultural variation: Evoked culture and mate preferences. Psychological Inquiry, 17(2), 75–95. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1702_1.
Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D. A., & Bloom, P. (2009). Conservatives are more easily disgusted than liberals. Cognition & Emotion, 23(4), 714–725. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930802110007.
Jetten, J., McAuliffe, B. J., Hornsey, M. J., & Hogg, M. A. (2006). Differentiation between and within groups: The influence of individualist and collectivist group norms. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36(6), 825–843. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.322.
Morand, S., & Walther, B. A. (2018). Individualistic values are related to an increase in the outbreaks of infectious diseases and zoonotic diseases. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 3866. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22014-4.
Navarrete, C. D., Fessler, D. M. T., & Eng, S. J. (2007). Elevated ethnocentrism in the first trimester of pregnancy. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28(1), 60–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2006.06.002.
Reicher, S. D., Templeton, A., Neville, F., Ferrari, L., & Drury, J. (2016). Core disgust is attenuated by ingroup relations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(10), 2631–2635. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1517027113.
Rohmer, L., Hocquet, D., & Miller, S. I. (2011). Are pathogenic bacteria just looking for food? Metabolism and microbial pathogenesis. Trends in Microbiology, 19(7), 341–348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2011.04.003.
Rudkin, J. K., McLoughlin, R. M., Preston, A., & Massey, R. C. (2017). Bacterial toxins: Offensive, defensive, or something else altogether? PLOS Pathogens, 13(9), e1006452. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1006452.
Schaller, M. (2011). The behavioural immune system and the psychology of human sociality. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 366(1583), 3418–3426. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0029.
Sironi, M., Cagliani, R., Forni, D., & Clerici, M. (2015). Evolutionary insights into host–pathogen interactions from mammalian sequence data. Nature Reviews Genetics, 16(4), 224–236. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg3905.
Taylor, L. H., Latham, S. M., & Woolhouse, M. E. (2001). Risk factors for human disease emergence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 356(1411), 983–989. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2001.0888.
WHO fact sheet. (2018). Top 10 causes of death. Geneva: World Health Organisation. http://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
McCulloch, K., O’Gorman, R. (2019). Pathogen Risk. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2326-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2326-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences