The Impact Of Infectious Disease Threat And Threat Sensitivity On Intergroup Bias

Intergroup bias is a common phenomenon in our daily life.It is more often manifested as in-group preference and out-group derogation.Our attitudes and behaviors are biased towards members who share a common in-group identity.According to the theory of behavioral immune system and the evolutionary hypothesis of intergroup bias,intergroup bias is the adaptive device that human beings have evolved for a long time to adapt to and cope with the threat of infectious diseases.By forming the intergroup communication strategy of in-group preference out-group derogation or in-group derogation out-group preference,individuals can prevent pathogens from entering the body and causing serious immune consequences.Avoid germs from the attitude and behavior level,reduce the probability of individual contact with pathogens,protect themselves and members of the inner group.Previous studies have found the influence of infectious disease threat on intergroup bias.Infectious disease threat from out-group will lead to in-group preference and out-group derogation,while infectious disease threat from in-group and beyond the ability of in-group immunity will lead to the formation of opposite out-group preference and in-group derogation.However,the threats of infectious diseases in the past have limitations in time and space,that is,they only spread rapidly in a certain region in a short period of time or spread slowly in the world in a long period of time.The emergence of the novel coronavirus for the first time in the world has caused a global pandemic in just a few months,which has brought great impact on the economies and public health systems of all countries in the world.The physical and mental health of the population is negatively affected.The impact of an evolving infectious disease threat such as the novel coronavirus(COVID-19)pandemic on intergroup biases remains to be supported by empirical research.According to the theory of enhanced sensitivity,there are individual differences in the subjective perception of infectious disease threat.Individuals with high threat sensitivity are more likely to perceive the threat of infectious disease and have stronger stress response.Therefore,the effect of infectious disease threat on individuals with high threat sensitivity may also be stronger.Based on the above inference,this study took the COVID-19 virus threat as an example to explore the impact of infectious disease threat on the inter-group bias and the regulatory role of threat sensitivity.Study 1 encoding the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in an individual’s region as an objective infectious disease threat indicator,it was found that the objective COVID-19 threat significantly negatively predicted the in-group attitude,and the more sensitive the individual to the threat,the stronger the negative prediction effect.In study 2,the subjective threat perception of infectious diseases was measured by questionnaire,and the results showed that the subjective threat of COVID-19 significantly negatively predicted the in-group attitude of individuals,and the predictive effect was limited to the subjects with high threat sensitivity.For individuals with low threat sensitivity,COVID-19 threat positively predicted outgroup attitudes,but not for individuals with high threat sensitivity.Study 3 further explored the impact of outgroup infectious disease threat on intergroup bias,and found that the COVID-19 threat mainly from outgroups significantly positively predicted the attitudes of individuals with lower threat sensitivity to the in-group,and significantly negatively predicted the attitudes of individuals with higher threat sensitivity to the in-group.Significantly positive prediction of outward group attitudes;Response efficacy significantly moderated the effect of COVID-19 threat on out-group attitudes.Only when individuals believed that out-group had relatively high epidemic prevention and control ability did COVID-19 threat significantly positively predict out-group attitudes.In study 4,the COVID-19 threat was priming by materials,and it was found that the difference was significant only in giving behavior.This study demonstrates that intergroup bias plays an important role in an individual’s response to the threat of infectious diseases.In the face of infectious disease threats with changing threat expectations and threat sources such as COVID-19,individuals adopt flexible threat management mechanisms and dynamically adjust the intergroup attitude strategies used,and threat sensitivity will prompt individuals to adopt more conservative coping styles.