Pandemic & AuthoritarianismCOVID-19 Could Nudge Minds and Societies Towards Authoritarianism
Humans have not one but two immune systems. The first, the biophysical immune system. The second is the behavioral immune system, which adapts our behavior to preemptively avoid potentially infectious people, places and things. An examination of the impact of the behavioral immune system on our attitudes towards obedience and authority shows that high rates of infectious diseases – and the disease-avoidance they promote – may fundamentally shape political opinions and social institutions.
It is a little-known fact that humans have not one but two immune systems. The first, the biophysical immune system – the one we’ve all heard much about – responds to infections as they enter the body, detecting and eliminating intruders such as the coronavirus.
The second is the behavioral immune system, which adapts our behavior to preemptively avoid potentially infectious people, places and things. The behavioral immune system is the first line of defense against infectious disease. It prompts people to socially conform with known traditions and to avoid foreign, dissimilar and potentially infectious groups.
In a recently published study, my colleagues and I at the University of Cambridge examined the impact of the behavioral immune system on our attitudes towards obedience and authority. We found that high rates of infectious diseases – and the disease-avoidance they promote – may fundamentally shape political opinions and social institutions.
Infection Drives Authoritarianism
We collected data from over 250,000 people across 47 countries and looked at the relationship between the (pre-COVID) infection risk where they lived and their authoritarian attitudes – the degree to which they endorsed conformity and obedience to authority.
We were curious as to whether high risk of infection would activate the behavioral immune system in ways that promoted authoritarian beliefs. We made sure to measure authoritarianism in a politically neutral way, to avoid our results reflecting people’s religious beliefs or commitments to certain political parties.
We found a clear relationship between people’s authoritarian attitudes and their region’s levels of infectious diseases: areas with a higher prevalence of infectious diseases had more authoritarian citizens. Additionally, areas with high infection rates tended to vote conservatively and were governed by more authoritarian laws – laws that are imposed on some members of society but not all.
Examples of authoritarian laws include legal restrictions surrounding LGBT civil liberties or extreme criminal punishment. Infection rates were specifically related to these “vertical” hierarchical laws, and not to “horizontal” laws that affect all citizens equally – suggesting rates of infectious disease uniquely affect people’s preferences for hierarchical power structures.
Strikingly, the pattern of results was consistent when comparing the 47 countries as well as US states and US metropolitan regions and cities. These effects persisted even after accounting for regional demographic variables such as educational attainment, wealth and inequalities, suggesting direct and significant relationships between infectious diseases and authoritarian beliefs and behaviors.
