In April 2020, a girl from Manipur was out to collect supplies when a biker approached and spat on her. A similar case occurred in Delhi in March, where another northeastern woman was spat on and labelled “Corona.” Since the outbreak and the rise in prevelance of COVID-19 in India, incidents of stereotypical discrimination against people from the northeast states have surged. On a global level, since the outbreak of COVID-19, cases of xenophobia against Asians have also been on the rise. Why?
Humans have been globally affected by infectious diseases throughout history. These are one of the primary sources of evolutionary pressure that humans encounter, often resulting in evolutionary adaptations including defenses against these diseases. A common and well-known system of defense is the immune system, that defeats invading pathogens. However, the immune system jumps into action only after the pathogens have entered our body. Another evolutionary adaptation that acts as the first line of defense against diseases and works on the principle of ‘prevention is better than cure’ is the Behavioural Immune System (BIS). According to the psychological scientist, Mark Schaller, the BIS describes a “complex suite of cognitive, affective and behavioural mechanisms that ultimately help prevent pathogen transmission in the face of recurrent infectious disease threats.” Its function is to detect signs of diseases in the immediate environment and facilitate avoidance of contact with potentially disease causing organisms or things. However, detection of diseases is not a simple task, particularly because parasites and bacteria are microscopic. Thus, people depend on superficial or ‘perceptual’ cues, i.e., features and properties of a stimulus to infer risk of infection, for example, rotten fruit or piece of putrid meat. When our sensory organs perceive the potential presence of infection in another, the BIS triggers disease avoidant behavior, in the form of disgust towards the other. This activation of the BIS also seems to occur in situations that may not warrant such reactions, owing to the high cost to life if not activated in all suspicious situations. This leads to ‘false-positive errors,’ i.e., the avoidance of people or objects on the basis of certain perceptual cues even though they might not actually pose a threat (in this scenario, threat of diseases). For example, facial deformation or blemishes are considered to be signs of diseases, from an evolutionary perspective. However, it is possible that a person with facial deformation or blemishes is not actually sick. One of the outcomes and an enabler of avoidant behaviour is stereotypes that get activated to identify and avoid groups of people that could potentially pass on their infection. When perceived vulnerability to a disease is unusually high, such as during a pandemic, prejudice against certain groups is also high; this is observed particularly towards members of an ‘outgroup’ whose appearance or behavior is perceived as a deviation from the norm, irrespective of whether such groups pose any real threat. During such times, norms such as those regarding what we eat, how we behave, and how we communicate with others are considered to be important, because they play a role in reducing the risk of catching an infection. For example, preparing food with dirty hands or food that has had contact with worms or insects usually would not be considered as acceptable. When psychologist Paul Rozin and colleagues asked participants to drink juice out of a bedpan, they refused to drink it, even when they knew the bedpan was brand new. Paul Rozin states that disgust evolved into an emotion that can be triggered by interpersonal and moral events, not just physical ones.
Xenophobic responses, based on the threat of infectious diseases, have also been observed during other pandemics in the past. For example, the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa came with a rise in cases of xenophobia towards Africans. For example, in a New York City school, two Senegalese students faced bullying, were labelled “Ebola,” and even pummelled by their classmates. Along the similar vein, a college rejected international applicants from African countries, including those that did not have confirmed Ebola cases.
A recent study found that disease threat predicted higher implicit and explicit racial prejudice in Blacks and Whites. In the study, participants’ implicit bias was measured using the Race Implicit Association Test (IAT). In the Race IAT, participants were presented with category labels of ‘European American’ and ‘African American’ and valence labels of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ at the top of their screen. At the centre of the screen, images of black and white individuals, as well as words that are positive and negative (such as, ‘wonderful’ and ‘horrible’ respectively) were presented to the participants. The participants’ task was to sort the stimuli into appropriate labels of ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘European American’ and ‘African American’ by pressing a specific key on the keyboard. In the first round, participants had to press the ‘E’ key if a ‘good’ word or an image of a white person was presented and ‘I’ key if a ‘bad’ word or an image of a black person was presented. In the second round, participants had to press the ‘E’ key if a ‘good’ word or an image of a black person was presented and ‘I’ key if a ‘bad’ word or an image of a white person was presented. The idea here is that if one has a slower reaction to selecting ‘good’ when black is linked to it and ‘bad’ when white is linked to it, then one is likely to be prejudiced against Black people and vice versa. Further, participants’ explicit bias was measured using a 7-point Likert scale. It was found that, consistent with the hypothesis, White participants living in states with higher prevalence of disease displayed greater implicit and explicit bias towards Black people. Similarly, Black participants displayed greater implicit and explicit bias towards White people.
BIS is not the only explanation of xenophobia. For example, from a social psychology point of view, a 2018 research noted that societal-level factors such as media coverage play an important role in shaping disgust reactions. The paper states that it is important to consider an interplay between evolved psychological mechanisms and the social world in which these mechanisms affect behaviour.
All of this is not to say that biological determinism excuses xenophobia and racism. Rather, it allows a person possessing prejudicial or anti-groups beliefs to question and address their own beliefs. It helps them to understand how the BIS influences their reactions towards other people and whether these beliefs are really the result of rational reasoning or not.
Kimaya Khanolkar
