Mere visual perception of other people's disease symptoms facilitates a more aggressive immune response.

Mark Schaller, Gregory E Miller, Will M Gervais, Sarah Yager, Edith Chen

Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. schaller@psych.ubc.ca

Psychological science 2010 May

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An experiment (N = 28) tested the hypothesis that the mere visual perception of disease-connoting cues promotes a more aggressive immune response. Participants were exposed either to photographs depicting symptoms of infectious disease or to photographs depicting guns. After incubation with a model bacterial stimulus, participants' white blood cells produced higher levels of the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) in the infectious-disease condition, compared with the control (guns) condition. These results provide the first empirical evidence that visual perception of other people's symptoms may cause the immune system to respond more aggressively to infection. Adaptive origins and functional implications are discussed.

Citation

Mark Schaller, Gregory E Miller, Will M Gervais, Sarah Yager, Edith Chen. Mere visual perception of other people's disease symptoms facilitates a more aggressive immune response. Psychological science. 2010 May;21(5):649-52