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Pleasant scents associated with cleanliness may affect human behavior, providing subconscious cues that bring out the best in people, according to new research led by a Brigham Young University scholar.
"We found people are more equitable, more charitable when there's a clean smell in the room," said Katie Liljenquist, an assistant professor of organizational leadership in BYU's business school. "Companies often employ heavy-handed interventions to regulate conduct, but they can be costly or oppressive. This is a very simple, unobtrusive way to promote ethical behavior."
Liljenquist is lead author on the study "The Smell of Virtue," accepted for publication in the journal Psychological Science.
The study compared subjects' decisions about dividing a pot of money and their willingness to volunteer for a philanthropic group. Some subjects were surveyed in an untreated room, while the other interview room had been lightly squirted with lemon-scented Windex. The popular cleaning product was selected only because it was conveniently available, Liljenquist said. Its manufacturer had no hand in supporting her research.
The trickier parts of the study were settling on a reliable gauge for ethical behavior and measuring that gauge.
"We wanted to capture morality. It covers a broad scope, so we relied on the Aristotelian virtues," Liljenquist said. "People globally agree that equity and charity are a virtue."
To measure
On average, the test group members gave $5.33, while those in the control group gave $2.81.
The charity test used 99 BYU students who were surveyed about their willingness to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, expressing their interest on a seven-point scale. Those in the scented room were more interested in volunteering (4.21 on average vs. 3.29). And 22 percent in the test group said they would donate money, versus 6 percent in the control group.
"Basically, our study shows that morality and cleanliness can go hand-in-hand," said co-author Adam Galinsky, a professor at Northwestern University. "Researchers have known for years that scents play an active role in reviving positive or negative experiences. Now, our research can offer more insight into the links between people's charitable actions and their surroundings."
Liljenquist noted a body of research that documents a correlation between bad smells and aggressive behavior. For example, researchers found vehicle accidents increased on particular roads when air quality was poor.
"There's fascinating stuff on saints turned sinners, but there is little on what can promote virtue instead of vice," Liljenquist said.
Her interest in cleanliness began a few years ago at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, where she was a grad student with co-author Chen-Bo Zhong, now a professor at University of Toronto. The two were talking about how refreshing showers are, she recalled, when the conversation turned toward whether people rid themselves of guilty feelings by bathing. They published a paper on the subject in the journal Science in 2006.
Liljenquist's research now looks at the extent to which cleanliness, or lack there of, influences impressions of people and organizations.
"The data tell a compelling story about how much we rely upon cleanliness cues to make a wide range of judgments about others," she said. "We're also looking at how cleanliness impacts creativity and one's sense of control. Some find cleaning therapeutic. It's a stress buster."
