Clean People Feel Morally Superior

* August 27, 2010 |

By Olivia Solon, Wired UK

A new study shows that people feel morally cleansed when they are physically clean, and as such are more inclined to judge others more harshly.

The study, with the somewhat Victorian-sounding name of “A clean self can render harsh moral judgment” was conducted by Chen-Bo Zhong at Northwestern University and appears in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Some 58 undergrads were invited to a lab filled with spotless new equipment. Half of the students were asked to clean their hands with antiseptic wipe, so as not to soil the shiny surfaces. Afterward all the students rated the morality of six societal issues — smoking, illegal drug use, pornography, profane language, littering and adultery — on an 11-point scale ranging from very moral to very immoral. Those who’d wiped their hands made far-harsher judgments than those who didn’t.

“Participants who cleansed their hands before rating the social issues judged these issues to be more morally wrong compared to those who did not cleanse their hands,” the researchers report.

In a follow-up study, hundreds of participants were told to read a short passage that began, “My hair feels clean and light. My breath is fresh. My clothes are pristine and like new,” made harsher moral judgments about 16 social issues compared to those primed to feel dirty by reading a passage that read, “My hair feels oily and heavy. My breath stinks. I feel so dirty.”

A third study was identical to the second, except that after reading either the dirty or clean passage of text, the 136 undergrad participants also ranked themselves against their peers on several factors including intelligence, attractiveness and moral character.

Those who held a self-image of cleanliness and purity made more harsh moral judgements on social issues. Crucially, this association was entirely mediated by their having an inflated sense of moral virtue compared with their peers. (By contrast, reading the clean vs. dirty text made no difference to self -rankings on the other factors).

“Acts of cleanliness have not only the potential to shift our moral pendulum to a more virtuous self, but also license harsher moral judgment of others,” Zhong and his team concluded


Read More Clean People Feel Morally Superior | Wired Science | Wired.com

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Could be significant to why civilised societies seem to have an automatic hostility to "barbarians".

Cleanliness/purity is one of the common moral sentiments. It's a good differentiator. Conservatives tend to have it considerably more strongly than liberals. I therefore think that if the study's authors have an independent way to sort their subjects by conservative/liberal, they would find it was mainly the "conservatives" who got more judgmental after a cleaning.

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In his draft book about the economic world of the 20th century, Slouching Towards Utopia, economic historian Brad DeLong analyses a magazine article that appeared in 1905 written by an anonymous university professor who complained that he was badly underpaid.

The professor's then salary was roughly equivalent to $300,000 a year today but he made the claim that it was grossly insufficient.

But relevant to the OP, DeLong writes:

Almost always the first luxury that a working-class family moving up would purchase would be the services of a laundress: since laundry was expensive and difficult, few working-class families could maintain upper-middle-class standards of cleanliness. How often would you take baths if the water had to brought in from an outside pump, and then heated on the stove? How often would you wash your clothes if everything had to be washed out in the sink, if the fabrics were three times as heavy and the detergents one-third as powerful as the ones available today, and if as a result the laundry was a full day’s chore? Hand laundry was not a two hour a week task. Those who could afford the resources to maintain bourgeois styles of cleanliness flaunted it. White shirts, white dresses, white gloves are all powerful indications of wealth in turn of the century America. They said "I don't have to do my own laundry and ," and they said it loudly.

White shirts, white uniforms (and indeed clean hands) were a strong indicator of social class. It is unsurprising that this persists a century later in linking cleanliness with moral superiority and harsh moral judgement.

It would be interesting to see what results Chen-Bo Zhong's study might produce in other cultures.

As a separate question might the link of cleanliness (and white colour) with moral judgement be a factor in discrimination against people with darker skin than is typical of those of European ancestry?

perhaps cleanliness *is* next to godliness.

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I'm not entirely convinced of a close association between cleanliness in this sense and purity in the magical sense. The disgust response is pretty universal and physiological, although of course overlayed by all sorts of enculturated perceptions.

The issue of white clothing as a status marker is well known, as is the backlash against it, the blue shirts worn by those asserting a working class identity even while employed in high status jobs. On the one hand the proliferation of washing machines contributes to the view that " we are all middle class now", on the other hand the distinction used to be the demonstration of wealth sufficient to have servants, which does not.

White is not the colour of cleanliness and purity in all cultures.

Originally Posted by psyche

perhaps cleanliness *is* next to godliness.

And, as my drill sergeant used to say, godliness is next to the infantry.

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Originally Posted by contracycle

I'm not entirely convinced of a close association between cleanliness in this sense and purity in the magical sense. The disgust response is pretty universal and physiological, although of course overlayed by all sorts of enculturated perceptions.

That was something I read somewhere. Maybe in Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate". Basically, there are physiological reasons to dislike dirt. And it got overlaid with magical thinking hence "cleanliness is next to godliness" and the traditions of the muslims to wash hands and feet before prayers or baptism by water for the christian "rebirth"...

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An interesting point. There is a long tradition in Christianity of superiors washing inferiors' feet (Jesus with the disciples, popes with other people's feet (I can't remember whose.)

Where did this tradition come from? Is it pre-Christian? Or was it due to the possibility that people living in less noble surroundings might have trodden in pig shit?

I always found that strikingly pervy. Why not lick them too, while you're down there?*

*When I am elevated to the peerage, this is going to be the motto on my coat of arms.

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Originally Posted by Zichao

I always found that strikingly pervy. Why not lick them too, while you're down there?* *When I am elevated to the peerage, this is going to be the motto on my coat of arms.

And so it should. I wonder whether this fascination with feet was associated with developing the technology to make really smelly cheese. Does anyone know what kinds of cheese were made in the days when Jesus bestrode the money changers in the temples?