People touch their sexual partner’s saliva with little discomfort; partially from such observations, proposal is that pathogen avoidance also depends on target relationship value

More valued relationship partners engender less pathogen avoidance. Joshua Tybur. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y

Abstract: People touch their own infant’s snot and their sexual partner’s saliva with little discomfort. Based partially on such observations, recent models have proposed that interpersonal pathogen avoidance varies not only as a function of perceived infection risk, but also target relationship value. The current work tested this hypothesis. In both of two studies (N’s = 504 and 430), participants were randomly assigned to think of a target who was: (1) their romantic partner; (2) their closest friend; (3) an acquaintance; or (4) a disliked other. They then indicated their comfort with 10 examples of infectious indirect contact with the target (e.g., touching a handkerchief used by the target). Finally, they completed a welfare-tradeoff task, which assessed the value they place on their relationship with the target. Study 1 revealed that comfort with infectious contact was strongly related to target relationship value, r = .68, p < .001; this effect remained after controlling for target category (e.g., romantic partner versus acquaintance), β = .21, p < .001. Study 2 replicated this finding, r = .62, p < .001, and further found that relationship value related to contact comfort independent of target category, attractiveness, and hygiene, β = .28, p < .001.