For more than a year leading up to the 2016 Presidential Election, Donald Trump whipped crowds of supporters into a frenzy regularly and easily by simply bringing up his promise to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico. The wall promises a physical barrier of protection from an imagined horde of what Trump calls "bad hombres" bringing drugs and a propensity for violent crime into the country.
But new research finds that the appeal to some of a wall might be just as much a subconcious response of the body's immune system as it is about concerns of safety, security or any other conscious reactions to immigration.
Political scientists from Denmark's Aarhus University and Temple University collaborated on the study, published in the latest American Political Science Review. They found that a hypersensitive behavioral immune system, which motivates humans and animals to avoid sources of potential infection like excrement, bodily fluids and rot, can cause people to misinterpret everything that is different as a potential source of infection.
"People with birthmarks, physical disabilities, abnormalities and something as innocent as a different skin color are subconsciously considered disease carriers by the hypersensitive," says Michael Bang Petersen from Aarhus.
In other words, the research indicates that a fear of "the other" could literally be an unconscious, physical response. It also explains why no amount of rational appeals or citing data and statistics about immigrant crime rates (the conservative Cato Institute, for one, says they're pretty low) ever seems to make a dent in negative attitudes towards immigrants.
"The behavioral immune system functions according to a 'better safe than sorry' approach," explains Petersen. "The fear comes from deeply ingrained unconscious systems that we can't control."
The researchers also point out that immigrants in general are not an actual infection risk.
If some people do have a physical, subconscious aversion to immigrants, it's particularly bad news for fostering integration of new arrivals within society.
"Those who are very concerned about the risk of infection are those who are most reluctant to seek out social contact with immigrants--something that we otherwise know fosters tolerance," says Aarhus Associate Professor Lene Aarøe.
Of course, there is evidence that we can influence and even change our own immune responses, so it stands to reason that a physical hypersensitivity towards immigrants and anyone else different can also be addressed.
Getting a passport or even just making a trip to the local carniceria might be a good place to start.
