From Pathogens to Paintings: A Preliminary Investigation Into the Behavioral Immune System's Influence on Visual Aesthetic Appreciation and Perception

As an antipathogenic psychological adaptation, the behavioral immune system has been associated with a broad spectrum of psychological phenomena, including mating, conformity, xenophobia, religiosity, social prejudice, and food preferences. Additionally, this system may influence artistic appreciation and perception. Activation of the behavioral immune system generally results in intolerance of morphological deviations, even toward stimuli that do not pose a real pathogen threat, as it operates on the "smoke detector principle." Therefore, we hypothesized that participants exposed to pathogen threats would exhibit less appreciation for abstract paintings-those deviating significantly from figural reality-compared to those under other threats or nonthreat conditions. Supporting our hypotheses, participants under pathogen threat liked abstract and ambiguous paintings (those lying between realistic and abstract) less compared to those in the other two conditions. However, the prediction that ambiguous paintings would be perceived as more abstract under pathogen threat did not receive statistically significant support. These preliminary results suggest that psychology evolved in response to pathogen threats may also influence visual aesthetic appreciation.