TY - JOUR
T1 - The pandemic exposes human nature
T2 - 10 evolutionary insights
AU - Seitz, Benjamin M.
AU - Aktipis, Athena
AU - Buss, David M.
AU - Alcock, Joe
AU - Bloom, Paul
AU - Gelfand, Michele
AU - Harris, Sam
AU - Lieberman, Debra
AU - Horowitz, Barbara N.
AU - Pinker, Steven
AU - Wilson, David Sloan
AU - Haselton, Martie G.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/11/10
Y1 - 2020/11/10
N2 - Humans and viruses have been coevolving for millennia. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19) has been particularly successful in evading our evolved defenses. The outcome has been tragic—across the globe, millions have been sickened and hundreds of thousands have died. Moreover, the quarantine has radically changed the structure of our lives, with devastating social and economic consequences that are likely to unfold for years. An evolutionary perspective can help us understand the progression and consequences of the pandemic. Here, a diverse group of scientists, with expertise from evolutionary medicine to cultural evolution, provide insights about the pandemic and its aftermath. At the most granular level, we consider how viruses might affect social behavior, and how quarantine, ironically, could make us susceptible to other maladies, due to a lack of microbial exposure. At the psychological level, we describe the ways in which the pandemic can affect mating behavior, cooperation (or the lack thereof), and gender norms, and how we can use disgust to better activate native “behavioral immunity” to combat disease spread. At the cultural level, we describe shifting cultural norms and how we might harness them to better combat disease and the negative social consequences of the pandemic. These insights can be used to craft solutions to problems produced by the pandemic and to lay the groundwork for a scientific agenda to capture and understand what has become, in effect, a worldwide social experiment.
AB - Humans and viruses have been coevolving for millennia. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19) has been particularly successful in evading our evolved defenses. The outcome has been tragic—across the globe, millions have been sickened and hundreds of thousands have died. Moreover, the quarantine has radically changed the structure of our lives, with devastating social and economic consequences that are likely to unfold for years. An evolutionary perspective can help us understand the progression and consequences of the pandemic. Here, a diverse group of scientists, with expertise from evolutionary medicine to cultural evolution, provide insights about the pandemic and its aftermath. At the most granular level, we consider how viruses might affect social behavior, and how quarantine, ironically, could make us susceptible to other maladies, due to a lack of microbial exposure. At the psychological level, we describe the ways in which the pandemic can affect mating behavior, cooperation (or the lack thereof), and gender norms, and how we can use disgust to better activate native “behavioral immunity” to combat disease spread. At the cultural level, we describe shifting cultural norms and how we might harness them to better combat disease and the negative social consequences of the pandemic. These insights can be used to craft solutions to problems produced by the pandemic and to lay the groundwork for a scientific agenda to capture and understand what has become, in effect, a worldwide social experiment.
KW - COVID-19|evolution|evolutionary medicine|evolutionary psychology|cultural evolution
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85096080006&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85096080006&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2009787117
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2009787117
M3 - Review article
C2 - 33093198
AN - SCOPUS:85096080006
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 117
SP - 27767
EP - 27776
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 45
ER -