Journal
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Volume 21, Issue 5, Pages 649-652Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/0956797610368064
Keywords
disease; health; immunity; perception; threat
Categories
Funding
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research Funding Source: Medline
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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.
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