| My coauthors and I show that the cross-national differences in collectivism vs. individualism, where collectivism corresponds to high value placed on conformity and social interdependence while individualism corresponds to high value placed on innovation and social independence, depend significantly on the relative differences in pathogen stress experienced by the people within different nations (Chapter 2). In essence, those individuals that exist within high parasite stress areas exhibit collectivism more than individualism.;We also explore the consequences of the common evolved behavior of selective conspecific avoidance in the service of disease avoidance for the genesis of language divergence (Chapter 3) and religion divergence (Chapter 4). While the empirical patterns are focused on humans, the theory is applicable to all of life and has provided a new theory of species formation and global biodiversity (Chapter 3).;We have explored the ontogeny of political values within a university population (Chapter 5) showing that conservatives experienced fewer childhood stressors and were more securely attached as adults than were liberals.;Next, we turn to the political value system known as democracy and its antipole autocracy (Chapter 6). Here we describe a parasite-based model of democratization based on the idea that emancipation from infectious disease leads to an increase in the valuation of individuals outside of the local in-group as well as other elements of democracy. We present evidence that across modern countries four measures of democratization are negatively related to infectious disease stress.;In Chapter 7, we explore the role of parasite differences for explaining cross-national variation in sex differences in life span and senescence, showing that in nations with lower parasite stress, males tend to die at younger ages than females while both sexes experience more similar rates of mortality in nations with high levels of infectious disease stress.;Lastly, in Chapter 8, we focus on the impact of parasites for explaining for cross-national variation in sex ratio at birth. We found that there is greater male bias in areas with fewer parasites as predicted from sex ratio theory. |
