Avoidance

Objective: Pathogen disgust has evolved as a psychological adaptation in response to the avoidance of disease-causing organisms. Recently, evolutionary social psychologists have proposed the existence of a behavioral immune system that has evolved to avoid pathogens as a psychological adaptation. However, researchers claim that the concept of a behavioral immune system is not the same as pathogen avoidance. Therefore, in this study, the aim is to investigate whether the behavioral immune system is the same as the pathogen avoidance system or has a broader meaning. Method: using Google Scholar database keywords such as disease avoidance, pathogen disgust, the behavioral immune system were searched. PubMed for the behavioral immune system, system over perception disease cues, and disease over perception bias was investigated. All-time periods were used for this review study and more than two hundred documents were reviewed and extracted according to the criteria. Results: The findings show that there are three main mechanisms involved in the behavioral immune system. This system includes the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral mechanisms. Therefore the results showed that the behavioral immune system has a broader meaning than the pathogen avoidance system. Conclusion: Research on physiological correlations with emotional experiences shows that disgust is evoked in response to pathogen-related stimuli and is associated with unique patterns of autonomic nervous system and neural activity. However little is known about the functional connections between anatomical structures, neurochemical processes, and various cognitive and behavioral phenomena that are the manifestations of the behavioral immune system, and more studies are needed in this area.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to predict distress tolerance in the elderly based on experiential avoidance and spiritual intelligence. Method: This was a descriptive correlational study. The population included all elderly individuals aged between 65 and 80 years who visited community centers in Tehran in 2022, from whom a sample of 300 was selected using cluster sampling. The Emotional Distress Tolerance Scale by Simons and Gaher (2005), the Spiritual Intelligence Scale by King (2008), and the Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire by Gámez et al. (2011) were utilized for data collection. Data were analyzed using regression analysis. Findings: The results indicated that experiential avoidance significantly negatively predicted distress tolerance. Additionally, spiritual intelligence significantly positively predicted distress tolerance. Conclusions: Based on the findings of the current study, it can be concluded that this predictive model could serve as an effective framework in counseling and psychotherapy centers to enhance distress tolerance among the elderly.