Disgust leads people to lie and cheat; cleanliness promotes ethical behavior

http://news.rice.edu/2014/11/13/rice-u-study-disgust-leads-people-to-lie-and-cheat-cleanliness-promotes-ethical-behavior/

Jeff Falk, David Ruth
Rice University
November 13, 2014

While feelings of disgust can increase behaviors like lying and cheating, cleanliness can help people return to ethical behavior, according to a recent study by marketing experts at Rice University, Pennsylvania State University and Arizona State University. The study highlights the powerful impact emotions have on individual decision-making.

“As an emotion, disgust is designed as a protection,” said Vikas Mittal, the J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business. “When people feel disgusted, they tend to remove themselves from a situation. The instinct is to protect oneself. People become focused on ‘self’ and they’re less likely to think about other people. Small cheating starts to occur: If I’m disgusted and more focused on myself and I need to lie a little bit to gain a small advantage, I’ll do that. That’s the underlying mechanism.”

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Mittal said the deeper meaning of the study’s finding is that these powerful emotions can be triggered by various innocuous-sounding things when people are reading the newspaper or listening to the radio. “What we found is that unless you ask people, they often don’t know they’re feeling disgusted,” Mittal said. “Small things can trigger specific emotions, which can deeply affect people’s decision-making. The question is how to make people more self-aware and more thoughtful about the decision-making process.”

Mittal mentioned Warren Buffett as an example of a smart decision-maker who avoids paying too much attention to the news. “If you’re making important decisions, how do you create an environment that is less emotionally cluttered so you can become progressively more thoughtful?”

For a copy of the study, “Protect Thyself: How Affective Self-Protection Increases Self-Interested Behavior,” e-mail jfalk@rice.edu. For more information about Mittal’s research, visit the Jones School’s website: http://business.rice.edu/Disgust.