Authors
Benedict C Jones, Amanda C Hahn, Claire I Fisher, Hongyi Wang, Michal Kandrik, Anthony J Lee, Joshua M Tybur, Lisa M DeBruine
Publication date
2018/7
Journal
Evolution and Human Behavior
Volume
39
Issue
4
Pages
470-471
Publisher
Elsevier Inc.
Description
We thank Fleischman and Fessler (2018) for their thoughtful and constructive comments on our paper “Hormonal correlates of pathogen disgust: Testing the Compensatory Prophylaxis Hypothesis”. We agree that improving measures of both disgust sensitivity and immunocompetence may yet reveal evidence for the Compensatory Prophylaxis Hypothesis and can only strengthen work on this topic. We elaborate here on these issues and suggest some directions for future research and methodological improvements. We fully agree with Fleischman and Fessler (2018) that reliance on self-report measures of disgust sensitivity is an important limitation of our study (and previous studies on this and related topics). As we noted in Jones et al.(2018b), and Fleischman and Fessler (2018) reiterated in their comment, self-report instruments may not be optimal for testing the Compensatory Prophylaxis Hypothesis, since they might not be able to detect small changes in disgust sensitivity. We proposed that facial electromyography, which has been used previously to assess inbreeding avoidance (De Smet, Van Speybroeck, & Verplaetse, 2014) and disgust conditioning (Borg, Bosman, Engelhard, Olatunji, & de Jong, 2016), could be used to test the Compensatory Prophylaxis Hypothesis. Other methods that are not dependent on self report, but that have not yet been used to investigate pathogen disgust (eg, mouse-tracking paradigms, Freeman, 2018, and key-press tasks, Aharon et al., 2001), could also be adapted to test the Compensatory Prophylaxis Hypothesis. We reiterate our belief that such measures could yet reveal evidence for the Compensatory …
Total citations
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