Clean Smells Promote Ethical Behavior

A recent study is suggesting that moral behavior may be encouraged with nothing more than clean smells. The Brigham Young University professor found a "dramatic improvement in ethical behavior with just a few spritzes of citrus-scented Windex." "The researchers see implications for workplaces, retail stores and other organizations that have relied on traditional surveillance and security measures to enforce rules. Perhaps the findings could be applied at home, too, Liljenquist said with a smile. 'Could be that getting our kids to clean up their rooms might help them clean up their acts, too.' The study titled "The Smell of Virtue" was unusually simple and conclusive. Participants engaged in several tasks, the only difference being that some worked in unscented rooms, while others worked in rooms freshly spritzed with Windex."

Comments

Smells like Mom is angry again.

[Mononoke]

You know she only cleans this thoroughly when she's angry, so we'd damn well better behave until this blows over.

This is BS

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bs...whenever an attractive woman walks by smelling like she just stepped out of the shower I have only immoral thoughts.

Happiness

[Akido37]

I don't know about any of you, but being in a smelly, disgusting store makes me unhappy.

I love the smell...

[chickenarise]

I love the smell of Windex in the morning... The smell, you know that fresh smell... Smells like, virtue.

Makes sense

[bsDaemon]

If a place smells like a moose just died in it, especially if its also visibly dirty, then I just sort of get the impression that it doesn't actually matter what I do in there. On the other hand, when a place is spotless, smells lemony fresh and everything appears in order then I'm not going to be the one to put my feet on the coffee table, no matter how tempting it might be. Smell ties into taste and is one of the more powerful senses we have, so it makes sense that it would play a large part in determining our impression of what is or isn't acceptable in a given location, every bit as much as it tells us what foods seem OK to eat.

Re:Makes sense

[Abcd1234]

You certainly do have a point, though I question the merits of a study like this one. If scent made such a noticable difference, then you can safely say that these folks were not terribly committed to doing the Right Thing. They needed an external motivation. That's hardly as good as doing the best you can, all the time, because you seriously believe in and want to adhere to sound, timeless principles that have a solid ethical or moral foundation.

So, what, you're going to assume the study is invalid and/or useless because it doesn't fit with your naively rosy view of human behaviour? Well, no offense, but tough shit.

For that reason, I take this to be further evidence that most people operate on a sort of auto-pilot.

And I take it as further evidence that humans are, despite our fancy intellect, often little more than opportunistic animals. And personally, I'd rather we just admit that fact and use it as the starting point for improving ourselves, rather than living with the delusion that we're somehow inherently noble creatures. 'course, we should already realize this... if the Milgram experiment taught us anything, it's that human morals are things easily set aside given the right circumstances.

Re:Makes sense

[electrons_are_brave]

I am a psycholgist who works in occupational health and safety, and I have a problem with the release of the results of an unpublished study, which has yet to be read, judged and verified but which draws a conclusion that could lead to more chemicals being introduced into workplaces. They clearly have never looked at the rates of occupational asthma or considered how little information we have about the synergistic effects of the multitude of low hazard chemicals which already exist.

I have no problem with the study (in so far as it can be judged from the press release). Obviously, since they only measured smell vrs no smell they can only conclude that the smell was the cause of the difference in behaviour. But studies are always constrained by money/time/space constraints. But they haven't waited for the studies which look at "hamburger" smells or cultural differences or been cautious in their reporting.

They think thay windex is a "clean" smell rather that a "chemical smell" and "pleasing" rather than "annoying". If the article had been published I would have looked at how they accounted for the possibility that they been seduced by the obvious liguistic association between "clean" and "ethical" which may well be an artifact of (the english) language. There could have been other reasons, such as it gave the impression that the room was better tended or less neglected. This matters because this impression could then be created in ways that do not involve spraying more chemicals into workplace air.

Of course, all this is speculation, because we can't read the bloody study.

Re:junk science

[pz]

There's no link to the original study, but it was clear from the article that there was no control group. They had a scented room vs. an unscented room, when what they should have had was a "pleasantly" scented room vs. an "unpleasantly" scented room with a third, unscented room as the control. Then they should have done some feedback questionnaires at the conclusion, in which they could have buried a question or two regarding the participant's scent preferences to see how well the participants' evaluation of the smell of the rooms lined-up with the premise of the study.

This study was actually just a subset of the premise that happy people are more likely to be grateful and donate their time and/or money than unhappy people, and that environmental factors can influence a person's relative happiness. And a demonstration that an attractive woman can get money and resources from a major university to run a useless study.

So you're supposing that the mere scenting of a room, with any scent whatsoever, will increase the chance of ethical behavior? Interesting. Sounds like you need to do a follow-on study, rather than bash the first one without having read the original manuscript. According to the article, they *did* have a feedback questionnaire, and the participants did not notice the scent. More importantly, however, we do not know from the article whether this was a double blind study. The devil is in the details for behavioral studies like this, and an easy way to eliminate many uncontrolled variables is to make it double blind.

Finally, it is rather presumptuous to state that BYU funded the research, especially given the list of three total collaborators come from three different universities. Also, I've personally filled out scores of grant applications from my local institution, private foundations, and national agencies. None of them required or even requested a photograph. I'm therefore highly dubious about your last conclusion.

From BYU?

[jonnat]

A Brigham Young University professor suggesting a possible biochemical link to ethical behavior. Sounds like a letter of resignation to me.

Re:But...

[Beardo the Bearded]

It depends on which of the ethical schools you're subscribing to.

Mill's utilitarianism model states that the best choice is the one that provides the most benefit for the most people. In terms of bank robbery, robbing a bank is highly ethical. The robber gets some money, that money gets spent, and a large trickle-down impacts the local economy. The bank is insured so they don't lose any money. The customers and tellers get some excitement and a story to tell for years. "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I was in a bank robbery?"

Kant's formal duty-based ethics means that you have to follow courses of action that are acceptable as universal principles for everyone to follow. Further, it is your INTENTION to follow the mores rather than your actions. Good will is the desire and intention to do one's duty. If your duty is to rob a bank, then robbing a bank is highly ethical. If they didn't expect you to rob it, they wouldn't spend all that time and money on robbery countermeasures.

Locke's rights-based ethics gives you rights based solely by your existence. The maximum possible liberty and happiness are fundamental; all other rights flow out of these basic ones. You are restricting the rights of the robbed in the bank, but as long as you are not taking their personal possessions (with the temporary exception of cell phones) you aren't treading on their rights significantly.

Finally, Aristotle's virtue ethics states that the goodness of an act or object depends on its function. A "good" knife cuts well; a "good" chair is comfy. So, a "good" bank robber is one that robs banks.

Reference:
Andrews, Gordon. Canadian Professional Engineering and Geoscience: Practice and Ethics. Thomson Nelson, 2005. (pp. 126 - 130)

(It didn't seem right to not specify a source on this one.)