Schnall, Benton & Harvey (2008) With a clean conscience Cleanliness reduces the severity of moral judgments

Introduction Significance of physical cleanliness and moral/spiritual purity amongst cultures and religions (e.g. washing parts of body before religious ceremony) Haidt & Joseph (2008) – proposed that this need to be pure has developed from need to safeguard oneself from potentially harmful germs This suggests that disgust evolved from an emotion to protect body from germs, parasites, etc, but was extended to social and moral domains Thus, people find immoral acts disgusting

Prior studies have found that experimentally induced feelings of disgust (i.e. bad smell, disgusting room, recalling a physically disgusting experience) can lead a person to conclude a particular moral action is wrong (Schnall, Haidt, Clore & Jordan, 2008) Zhong and Liljenquist (2006) looked at the association between physical and moral purity in Western cultures –This investigated whether cleansing could “wash away one’s sins” in order to reduced the perceived seriousness of moral transgressions and washing away others’ sins It is expected that priming participants with cleansing words would reduce the severity of moral judgments more so than would priming with neutral control words

Experiment 1 Method 40 participants (30 females; mean age = 20) scrambled-sentence task: 40 sets of words, task is to underline any 3 words to form sentences neutral condition: only neutral words in set cleanliness condition: ½ of words related to cleanliness (e.g. “washed”), ½ neutral rating of 6 moral dilemmas on scale from 0 (perfectly OK) to 9 (extremely wrong) Dog (eating one’s dead dog) Trolley (switching the tracks of a trolley to kill one workman instead of five) Wallet (keeping money inside a found wallet) Plane crash (killing a terminally ill plane crash survivor to avoid starvation) Resume (putting false information on a resume) Kitten (using a kitten for sexual arousal) then rating of current emotions on items relaxed, angry, happy, sad, afraid, depressed, disgusted, upset, confused Prediction Priming with cleanliness words will reduce severity of moral judgments compared to priming with neutral words

Results no difference between 2 conditions on emotion ratings lower ratings of moral judgments in cleanliness condition than in neutral condition  After concepts of cleanliness were cognitively activated, moral judgments were less severe * significant *

Experiment 2 Participants tested individually First room: 3 min clip from Trainspotting 44 students (32 females; mean age = 22.18) Aimed to show that cleansing behaviour would reduce the effect of disgust on moral judgements. Method

Prediction: participants who washed their hands after feeling disgusted would make less severe moral judgements Second room: hand-washing participants told to wash hands as room had to be kept clean Participants completed moral dilemmas at table in room Dog (eating one’s dead dog) Trolley (switching the tracks of a trolley to kill one workman instead of five) Wallet (keeping money inside a found wallet) Plane crash (killing a terminally ill plane crash survivor to avoid starvation) Resume (putting false information on a resume) Kitten (using a kitten for sexual arousal) Participants then had to report back on emotion felt immediately after watching film clip

–Did the study prime the cognitive construct of cleanliness? –Combination of priming and cleansing behaviour? Not clear if washing hands alone accounted for the reduction in moral judgement Results Disgust ratings higher than other emotions participants felt equally disgusted in both conditions after film clip Participants in hand washing condition made less severe moral judgements than participants in no-handwashing condition.  hand washing reduced feelings of disgust which reduced severity of moral judgements * * * significant

Rationalist Model Discussion purity can serve as intuition when judging moral quality of actions novel finding: this occurs even when the action has nothing to do with participants’ own morality How does this fit with models of moral judgment?

Haidt’s (2001) Social Intuitionist Model intuitive processes unrelated to specific emotions influenced moral judgments fits with notion that intuitive processes do not always involve emotional processes

Conclusion Haidt’s (2001) Social Intuitionist Model is supported “purity is not just a metaphor” we try to place ourselves close to high spiritual beings by being physically and morally pure (in contrast to animals) cleanliness has potential to lead people to see moral actions as pure and good “cleanliness might indeed feel as if it were next to godliness” Limitations Low participant numbers Not certain whether participants bought cover story for washing hands Sex, religion may have had influence