Mark Schaller

TL;DR: The behavioral immune system consists of a suite of psychological mechanisms that detect cues connoting the presence of infectious pathogens in the immediate environment, trigger disease-relevant emotional and cognitive responses, and thus facilitate behavioral avoidance of pathogen infection.

TL;DR: This work revisits the idea of a motivational hierarchy in light of theoretical developments at the interface of evolutionary biology, anthropology, and psychology and proposes a renovated hierarchy of fundamental motives that serves as both an integrative framework and a generative foundation for future empirical research.

TL;DR: The results support the hypothesis that collectivism (compared with individualism) will more often characterize cultures in regions that have historically had higher prevalence of pathogens, and reveal previously undocumented consequences of pathogenic diseases on the variable nature of human societies.

TL;DR: This paper derived the hypothesis that chronic and contextually aroused feelings of vulnerability to disease motivate negative reactions to foreign peoples and found that chronic disease worries predicted implicit cognitions associating foreign outgroups with danger, and also predicted less positive attitudes toward foreign (but not familiar) immigrant groups.