Cleanliness May Foster Morality

[thundley4]

A simple spritz of a fresh-smelling window cleaner made people more fair and generous in a new study.

The researchers figure cleanliness fosters morality.

They conducted fairness tests, with subjects completing tasks in a room that was either unscented or one that was sprayed with a common citrus-scented window cleaner.

One test involved a game. Study participants were given $12 of real money, which they were told came from an anonymous partner in another room. They had to decide how much of it to either keep or return to their partners who, they were told, had trusted them to divide it fairly.

Subjects in clean-smelling rooms gave back $5.33 on average. The others gave back just $2.81.

"Morality and cleanliness can go hand-in-hand," said study team member Adam Galinsky of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

A second experiment asked the subjects' interest in volunteering for a Habitat for Humanity service project. On a 7-point scale, those amid the fresh scent ranked at a 4.21 interest level, on average, while those in the normal room came in at 3.29. Rather just donate money? Sure, said 22 percent of the folks in the fresh-smelling room, compared to only 6 percent in the normal room.

  LiveScience

Maybe there is something to that old saying, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness ", after all. It would also explain the immorality of dirty smelly liberals.

[Mr Mannn]

Sooo, the socks airing out on my floor make me immoral?
Does that mean my wife picking up my socks makes me a better man?

[LC EFA]

The sole purpose of my existence is to disprove this theory. 

[vesta111]

The sole purpose of my existence is to disprove this theory. 

You got my attention, I have been looking for a Government Grant for the study of some cockamamie thing, this is just perfect.  No degree needed, no experience, just $150,000 to visit the homes of criminals and check out if they wash their dishes or clean the stove.

Unfortunately as I found out years ago from a woman that lived in a ghetto that the welfare cheats found out that when when social workers showed up in the neighborhood the worse cheats and drug dealers kept their residences squeaky clean.  When Inspectors walked into a well ordered home they turned around and walked out, the dishes were washed, beds made, " no problem here".

It is because we equate order and appearance with good that we expect to find no wrong doing.  This does not as most of us think come from the Bible, Cleanliness is next to Godliness.  Someone in the 1800 said it and don't we get into trouble for believing that.

Perhaps I could get a  government grant to prove one cannot tell a book by its cover.