Browsing by Author "Ashokkumar, Ashwini"

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Citation - WoS: 12
Citation - Scopus: 18
Explaining Illness With Evil: Pathogen Prevalence Fosters Moral Vitalism
(Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2019) Sachkova, Marianna; Kuppens, Peter; Crespo, Carla; Bain, Paul; Leknes, Siri; Tong, Jennifer; Fischer, Ronald; Eastwick, Paul W; Pelay, Cesar; M. Guerra, Valeschka; Guevara, José Luis Castellanos; Pina, Afroditi; Swann, William B; Yeung, Victoria Wai-lan; Hooper, Nic; Karasawa, Minoru; Vauclair, Christin-Melanie; Ashokkumar, Ashwini; Friese, Malte; Huang, Li-Li; Saguy, Tamar; Silfver-Kuhalampi, Mia; Loughnan, Steve; Bastian, Brock; Becker, Maja; Duffy, Jacob; Bilewicz, Michał; Sortheix, Florencia; Collier-Baker, Emma; Hanke, Katja; Peker, Müjde; Gómez, Ángel; Junqi, Shi
Pathogens represent a significant threat to human health leading to the emergence of strategies designed to help manage their negative impact. We examined how spiritual beliefs developed to explain and predict the devastating effects of pathogens and spread of infectious disease. Analysis of existing data in studies 1 and 2 suggests that moral vitalism (beliefs about spiritual forces of evil) is higher in geographical regions characterized by historical higher levels of pathogens. Furthermore, drawing on a sample of 3140 participants from 28 countries in study 3, we found that historical higher levels of pathogens were associated with stronger endorsement of moral vitalistic beliefs. Furthermore, endorsement of moral vitalistic beliefs statistically mediated the previously reported relationship between pathogen prevalence and conservative ideologies, suggesting these beliefs reinforce behavioural strategies which function to prevent infection. We conclude that moral vitalism may be adaptive: by emphasizing concerns over contagion, it provided an explanatory model that enabled human groups to reduce rates of contagious disease.
Citation - WoS: 7
Citation - Scopus: 7
A 32-Society Investigation of the Influence of Perceived Economic Inequality on Social Class Stereotyping
(Wiley, 2022) Ashokkumar, Ashwini; Billet, Matthew; Becker, Maja; Peters, Kim; Jetten, Joland; Barry, Oumar; Tanjitpiyanond, Porntida; Peker, Müjde
There is a growing body of work suggesting that social class stereotypes are amplified when people perceive higher levels of economic inequality—that is, the wealthy are perceived as more competent and assertive and the poor as more incompetent and unassertive. The present study tested this prediction in 32 societies and also examines the role of wealth-based categorization in explaining this relationship. We found that people who perceived higher economic inequality were indeed more likely to consider wealth as a meaningful basis for categorization. Unexpectedly, however, higher levels of perceived inequality were associated with perceiving the wealthy as less competent and assertive and the poor as more competent and assertive. Unpacking this further, exploratory analyses showed that the observed tendency to stereotype the wealthy negatively only emerged in societies with lower social mobility and democracy and higher corruption. This points to the importance of understanding how socio-structural features that co-occur with economic inequality may shape perceptions of the wealthy and the poor. © 2022 The Authors. European Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.