Preregistered direct replication of “Sick body, vigilant mind: The biological immune system activates the behavioral immune system”

Tybur, J. M., Jones, B. C. , Debruine, L. M. , Ackerman, J. M. and Fasolt, V. (2020) Preregistered direct replication of “Sick body, vigilant mind: The biological immune system activates the behavioral immune system”. Psychological Science, 31(11), pp. 1461-1469. (doi: 10.1177/0956797620955209) (PMID:33079639)

Abstract

The tendency to attend to and avoid cues to pathogens varies across individuals and contexts. Researchers have proposed that this variation is partially driven by immunological vulnerability to infection, though support for this hypothesis is equivocal. One key piece of evidence (Miller & Maner, 2011) shows that participants who have recently been ill—and hence may have a reduced ability to combat subsequent infection—allocate more attention to faces with infectious-disease cues than do participants who have not recently been ill. The current article describes a direct replication of this study using a sample of 402 individuals from the University of Michigan, the University of Glasgow, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam—more than 4 times the sample size of the original study. No effect of illness recency on attentional bias for disfigured faces emerged. Though it did not support the original finding, this replication provides suggestions for future research on the psychological underpinnings of pathogen avoidance.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported by Horizon 2020 European Research Council Grant No. StG-2015 680002-HBIS.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: DeBruine, Professor Lisa and Fasolt, Vanessa and Jones, Professor Benedict
• Authors: Tybur, J. M., Jones, B. C., Debruine, L. M., Ackerman, J. M., and Fasolt, V.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences; College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Psychology & Neuroscience; College of Science and Engineering > School of Psychology
• Journal Name: Psychological Science
• Publisher: SAGE
• ISSN: 0956-7976
• ISSN (Online): 1467-9280
• Published Online: 20 October 2020
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2020 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Psychological Science 31(11):1461-1469
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence