Behavioural Immunity

📌 Update (November 2024): We started the data collection. Wish us good luck! 🥳

This is the main project that I currently conduct at the Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław, Poland. My co-workers are the wonderful Dariusz Danel and Piotr Fedurek.

This project examines how high school students’ perceived vulnerability to diseases affects their social interactions, using advanced sensors and social network analysis. It aims to explore how this perceived vulnerability, linked to the behavioural immune system, influences social behaviour. Students with higher behavioural immune system activity might be less social to protect their health. The research will collect data from sensors and surveys on perceived vulnerability, health, social behaviour, and demographics. The goal is to better understand the relationship between social interactions and behavioural immune system activity, which could improve public health strategies.

We have already collected the data in high schools in Wrocław and Dynów; this Autumn, we will start the third data collection in Toruń. We will also include a measure of disgust to determine if it affects the relationships we are studying.