A Fascinating Insight Into Our Emotions & Behaviour During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Learning Goals
What is the behavioural immune system?
How might this affect how you feel and behave during the pandemic?
What can you do to mitigate the reactions of this system, reduce fear, and potentially help your relationships?
Reading time 10 minutes.
How do you feel when you notice someone leave a toilet cubicle without washing their hands? This example and other violations of certain social norms can activate the behavioural immune system (BIS). I had never come across this term until late in 2021, and on questioning other psychologists, nutritionists, and doctors not one had heard of this fascinating and evolutionarily adaptive system either. Assuming most other people will also have never heard of this, I felt drawn to learn and then write what I can about this topic which has implications for our functioning in relationships and as a society, country (and world) right now.
I first read about this system in a piece of writing produced by psychiatrist Dr Norman Doidge, author of the infamous book “The Brain that Changes Itself.” In his online work “Needle Points” he described the system and how it can influence both fear of Covid-19 as well as “hesitancy” about vaccinations. Now, for quite a few months, I’ve been trying to make psychological sense of the different ways in which we have all been reacting and responding to the pandemic; I’ve found the BIS one extremely helpful concept to zoom out and reflect on what has been happening. If you’d also like some insight into our behaviour during the time of Covid-19 then read on.
The BIS is a relatively new term for something that has been around for as long as we have and was coined by evolutionary psychologist Mark Schaller (check out this informative American Psychological Association podcast interview with him). It is a psychological adaptation that decreases the risk of infection from a pathogen using germ aversion (avoidance), and although it interacts with our actual biological immune system it comprises purely cognitive, emotional, and behavioral mechanisms via brain circuitry. The BIS can be thought of as a pre-emptive alarm that aims to prevent an exposure to illness in the first place because “immunological defences are costly (and not always successful)” (Schaller, Murray & Hofer, 2021, p. 1). In contrast, our biological immune system responds once we are exposed – this includes both a fast but non-specific response to fighting infection (innate) and a specialised response that kicks in if innate immunity hasn’t succeeded (adaptive).
The BIS includes thoughts, emotions/sensations, and reactive or avoidant behaviour. It is activated once there has been an automatic cue in the environment that triggers your sense of threat towards becoming infected (or a loved one becoming infected). Let’s make it concrete:
Scenario One
If you feel very concerned about catching Covid-19 (with a high perceived risk of infectibility for yourself or a loved one) and you feel less anxious about Covid-19 transmission with mask-wearing, then the sight of a person approaching who is maskless may cue a strong reaction in you. You could have thought “they could be sick,” “I’m going to catch it/pass it on to someone I love,” “how could they be so ignorant/uncaring/selfish” and you may notice disgust, fear, or even feelings of rage towards them. Just like not washing your hands after going to the toilet, it is currently considered to be a transgression of a social norm. Your body might respond with a raised heart rate, rapid breathing, or tense muscles. Your behavioural response will be motivated to reduce the threat – such as taking a wide berth or crossing the road, perhaps averting eye contact or even reacting with an angry look or comment. All designed to help you feel safer and avert infection.
Scenario Two
In contrast, if someone is 1) not so concerned about catching Covid-19 (i.e., maybe they have already had it, or they engage in lots of immune-supportive behaviours or vaccination that reduce their sense of vulnerability), or 2) they don’t consider that lack of a mask increases their risk of catching or spreading Covid-19 (note: this is not a blog about mask effectiveness!), then their BIS is unlikely to be cued by this particular scenario.
What is the Function of the Behavioural Immune System?
It detects cues about the presence of a possible pathogen (e.g., someone coughing),
It triggers disease-relevant emotional, physiological, and cognitive responses (disgust, fear and rage), and,
Motivates behaviour with the aim to avoid infection (Schaller & Park, 2011).
Additional key points to know:
It is adaptive and helps us to survive infection by preventing it in the first place.
It overgeneralizes like a smoke alarm by responding to cues in the environment – it is better to over function and have a false alarm than to under detect threat and die!
It bypasses the logical thinking functions of the frontal lobes so results in emotional responding (unless we are mindful of this happening).
It is heightened whenever we feel vulnerable or have higher “perceived infectibility.”
It is automatic and can be hard to switch off once activated (again, this is unless we are mindful).
It may result in enhanced biological immune function and white blood cell count via psychoneuroimmunological “mind-body” connections.
“Ultimately the BIS is fueled by a combination of heightened fear of a pathogen and our own perceived vulnerability”.
How the Behavioural Immune System Relates to Our Relationships
It results in hypervigilance to others – with a focus on detecting pathogen threat (for example if someone is coughing, not wearing a mask, unvaccinated).
It leans towards in-group and out-group behaviour – aversion of the outgroup and enhanced cohesion with the ingroup.
It increases prejudice and stereotyping of the outgroup.
It can lead to stigmatizing those who have cues of disease (real or perceived).
It can direct strong feelings of disgust, fear, and hatred towards others.
It may result in reduced extroversion and reduced inclination to socialize.
And it leads to a greater sensitivity to violations that are deemed immoral by our society (i.e., lower tolerance to any social norms not being complied with).
The core aim of the BIS is pathogen avoidance and survival – to help reduce the threat to you and your loved ones, especially those who may be most vulnerable (e.g., elderly, immunocompromised), as well as helping your tribe to survive.
Simply knowing about this system is extremely powerful – it enables you to step out of the automatic survival tribal response and to start to become aware of feelings like disgust, fear and aversion towards cues or people you deem to be dangerous. These cues may be either related to the virus itself but for some people can actually be triggered in response to the idea of receiving a vaccination. In a fascinating paper, Peter Solak and his team found that a germ aversion reaction is triggered - in some people - in response to puncturing the skin and injecting a foreign substance, despite reassurances that the vaccine is safe (Solak et al., 2021).
If we look through the BIS lens, discussing the idea of receiving a Covid vaccination could be a cue for this person. They may have thoughts like “I could have an adverse reaction,” “I can’t cope with the feeling of a needle going in my arm,” and feel disgusted at this thought, and experience fear or anger, with accompanying physical symptoms like a racing heart, rapid breathing and an upset stomach. This may result in behaviour to avoid vaccination.
In both this example, and when a person is very fearful of catching Covid-19, the BIS response switches on in an attempt to help them feel safer from a perceived threat. Their fight-or-flight response gears up and results in distress, stress, anxiety and fear.
Managing these kinds of threat reactions is very important when it comes to your “biological” immune system, as it is only when we are in a more safe and relaxed state that our immune functioning is optimised. When in a fight-or-flight response your nervous system is preoccupied on high alert and your immune system is suppressed – you don’t need to fight off an infection if you are running away from a tiger! Your body prioritizes all resources and systems needed to win the battle, and so your immune system function is decreased until the threat is over. But fight-or-flight is designed to be short-lived and relatively infrequent rather than long-lasting and unremitting.
Throughout the global pandemic, most humans have entered an enduring fight-or-flight stage. This is a very depleting state as this burns through key nutrients needed for wellness and immunity with the triage theory sending these to the systems needed to maintain the stress response (i.e., the brain and the nervous system). Anecdotally, people often report getting rundown and sick after a period of prolonged stress or trauma or sometimes when they finally stop and have a break.
Hopefully, by now you have a good understanding of the fascinating BIS and how it may operate for different people in various situations that we are facing at this stage of the pandemic. If we boil the BIS down to its core aim and how it helps you in the present moment, it is here to tell you that you value health and life. This system is trying to keep you and those you love well and safe! By focusing on this helpful aim of the system then, what are the key behaviours that you can do to keep yourself and others healthy and able to respond to both the risk posed by chronic stress as well as potential infection?
What you Can do Right Now to Support your Behavioural Immune System:
1) Reduce fight-or-flight:
Give yourself a break from news on Covid-19 statistics, MIQ, borders, mandates, and all related sequelae – especially towards the evening time when you need to wind down, rest and recover from the day.
Set some boundaries around how much time you choose to allocate to checking in about what is happening, and focus on receiving news that is helpful and practical rather than news that is simply perpetuating fear and a constant reminder of the scary stories and potential threats.
Put your phone in another room, turn off the news, and focus on anything else – you may get ideas about this from my blog on cultivating Joy from late 2021.
Ensure you are breathing slowly and deeply to help calm your nervous system. Unhook your mind from future worries and rumination about the past.
Become aware of cues that may be triggering your BIS and actively counter these – with grounding, breathing, mindfulness and emotional regulation skills. Remember that logical thinking can be offline during times of high BIS activation. We are all different and all kinds of things could activate the BIS uniquely for you – do you know what those things are?
If you are really struggling with reactive emotions, extreme fear, or panic attacks that are getting in the way of your life, it may be a good time to seek professional support – it’s been a tough time for many, but there are many evidence-based therapies that can help with getting the brakes back on after a period of prolonged threat.
2) Take practical values-based action:
In addition to following public health advice, you can learn about and practice what you can do each day to know you have taken steps to reduce your chance of infection. By knowing (or even feeling like) you've done something concrete about the threat, you will allow your nervous system to relax so you can move out of fight-or-flight mode and therefore potentially have a healthier immune response. (Remember, being in flight-or-flight weakens the immune system).
There are some simple evidence-based strategies to reduce stress and optimise a robust immune response such as:
Get adequate quality rest, relaxation, and sleep.
Ensure sufficient immune-supporting nutrients (e.g., Vitamin D, Zinc and Vitamin A and C) through sunlight exposure and real food nutrition.
Avoid depleting ultra-processed foods, sugar, too much caffeine, and alcohol.
Talk about how you’re feeling with people who align with you and who you feel safest with – these can include friends or family, health professionals, as well as online support groups.
Keep physically fit each day to support a healthy weight and good metabolic health.
Support your brain and nervous system with a good quality multi-nutrient product according to Professor Julia Rucklidge’s research on coping during stress (Rucklidge et al., 2012).
Learn about what you can do for yourself or others you love and discuss with your doctor, nutritionist, psychologist, or other health professionals to tailor this to your health context.
Even if you are more compromised in your health, these same steps can help to relieve the anxiety that comes with this reality so that the anxiety itself doesn’t get in the way of the most optimal immune response, should you fall ill.
3) Use your Attachment System:
Social connection through close attachment may offset stress, helps to quell fear, and may enhance immune functioning and even speed up healing time (Hunter & Maunder, 2015). Feeling safe, understood and supported is a foundational human need but especially so at times of increased vulnerability, which occurs through times of illness, prolonged stress and separation. But because different people have different BIS cues (some people against the pathogen and some against the vaccine), feelings of threat and disagreement may arise in even the closest relationships.
By understanding the cues you have (e.g., someone being sick, people not wearing a mask, vaccine-related) and being self-aware of the strong reactions these can produce (disgust, fear, and anger), you can attempt to calm this response and return to the present moment where you can then hold empathy for other people and their reactions. They may be doing the best they can within the very difficult pandemic circumstances. In-group and out-group formations are a natural product of the BIS as these relate to our tendency for tribalism as part of survival. Through using compassion and empathy skills to understand where another perspective may be coming from and trying to soothe our BIS we can hopefully reduce the polarisation of our society.
Even though the BIS can be very helpful at keeping you safe, being aware of it and your behaviour is just as important - so that you don't end up in a fight-or-flight state which can compromise the biological immune system. By recognizing the system at play within ourselves we can check whether we are reacting from a fear or disgust response to cues of threat we experience around us. With this insight and wisdom, we can actively counter the BIS responses to take care of our own emotional needs. Remember that the BIS (and pandemic) is time-limited in contrast to our important relationships that are long-term or even lifelong! By managing our own responses and understanding the responses of others better we can hopefully benefit from relationships that will support us through a prolonged period of stress and beyond, and enhance our best chance of survival collectively.
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References
Hunter, J., & Maunder, R. (Eds.). (2015). Love, fear and health: How our attachments to others shape health and healthcare. University of Toronto Press.
Needle Points: Why so many are hesitant to get the COVID vaccines, and what we can do about it. (2021, October 28). Tablet. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/needle-points-vaccinations-chapter-one
Rucklidge, J. J., Andridge, R., Gorman, B., Blampied, N., Gordon, H., & Boggis, A. (2012). Shaken but unstirred? Effects of micronutrients on stress and trauma after an earthquake: RCT evidence comparing formulas and doses. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental, 27(5), 440-454. DOI: 10.1002/hup.2246
Saad, J.M., Prochaska, J.O. An adaptive behavioral immune system: A model of population health behavior. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, 8, 92 (2021).DOI: 10.1057/s41599-021-00759-0
Schaller, M., Murray, D. R., & Hofer, M. K. (2021). The behavioural immune system and pandemic psychology: The evolved psychology of disease-avoidance and its implications for attitudes, behaviour, and public health during epidemic outbreaks. European Review of Social Psychology, 1-37. DOI: 10.1080/10463283.2021.1988404
Schaller, M., & Park, J.H. (2011). The behavioral immune system (and Why It Matters). Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(2), 99 – 103. DOI: 10.1177/0963721411402596
Solak, Ç, Peker-Dural, H, Karlidag, & Peker, M. (2021). Linking the behavioural immune system to COVID-19 vaccination intention: The mediating role of the need for cognitive closure and vaccine hesitancy. Personality and Individual Differences, 185, 111245. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.111245
