So picture this: Just yesterday, you read a news story that warned people about a massive uptick in COVID in your state. You're not quite ready to find your old masks, but you make a mental note for sure. Today at work, you find yourself sitting at your usual seat at a weekly team meeting. Your co-worker, Huey, is sitting to your right, as usual. Huey is one of your best friends at work and you don't think a thing.

Until Huey coughs. Loudly and uncontrollably.

You find yourself, as if automatically, moving your chair slightly away from Huey. As your supervisor gives a slide presentation on some new initiative that was handed down by Corporate, Huey coughs wildly again. Oh my goodness! you say to yourself. It is on my computer, my mouse, and...wait, what?! Ew—it is on my hand. MY HAND!!! you scream (silently) to yourself.

As politely as you can, you excuse yourself from the meeting and beeline to the bathroom. You find yourself washing your hands as if your life depends on it. And perhaps it does.

One of the great things about the evolutionary perspective in the behavioral sciences pertains to how truly ubiquitous the applications of evolutionary science are across the human experience (see Geher, 2014). While many people are aware of evolutionary applications of such topics as human mating (e.g., Buss,........

© Psychology Today