Posted by Helen on: 12.02.2008 /
Last week’s Economist had a couple of interesting articles about human behavior.
Can the can
The idea that graffiti-spraying and other forms of low-level delinquency promote further bad behaviour has now been tested experimentally
A PLACE that is covered in graffiti and festooned with rubbish makes people feel uneasy. And with good reason, according to a group of researchers in the Netherlands. Kees Keizer and his colleagues at the University of Groningen deliberately created such settings as a part of a series of experiments designed to discover if signs of vandalism, litter and low-level lawbreaking could change the way people behave. They found that they could, by a lot: doubling the number who are prepared to litter and steal.
Cleanliness is next to godlessness
Soaping away your outer dirt may lead to inner evil
PUBLIC displays of untidiness, such as graffiti, may promote bad behaviour (see article), but when it comes to personal cleanliness the opposite appears to be true. A study just published in Psychological Science by Simone Schnall of the University of Plymouth and her colleagues shows that washing with soap and water makes people view unethical activities as more acceptable and reasonable than they would if they had not washed themselves.
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Comment by: Lily
1Wow, the second article especially is really interesting, and it makes sense. But from the comments on the Economist website, people seem pretty ticked off by it.
I read the original scientific paper that the article is talking about, and it’s pretty good. From the conclusion:
So cleanliness makes us think that moral actions are more moral than they are, which in turn makes immoral actions seem more moral than they are. I wonder if this is at all related to self-congratulatory tendencies in religion.
Comment by: Helen
2Thanks for your comment, Lily.
It does seem to have bearing on religion. It’s disturbing to me that people who do some sort of outward cleansing then apparently lower their moral standards.
Comment by: MartinGugino
3In defense of graffiti and free speech:
Graffiti is one of the four pillars of hip-hop. The study classifies graffiti with litter, which I feel is an untested assumption, and invalidates the study. The underlying variable, I presume, is the “demonstration of contempt for the society as it is”. Litter may do that; however graffiti demonstrates contempt for ‘the man’, at most, and is an expression of life, and art, at best. It should be protected by the first ammendment, in my opinion, in many cases, rather than automatically asserting that property rights trump all others. Certain cases in California, upheld in the US Supreme Court, do place free speech above property rights in some cases. “Pruneyard” is the primary case, and here is a related article on Slate.
The Slate characterization of the Pruneyard decision is not accurate in my opinion. I can look for an alternate explanation of its impact if you like. I think it is “as long as the expression does not interfere with the primary purpose: shopping; and it may interfere with even that if there is a specifically approprate reason for that spot (for the demonstration).” So far this applies only in California, where their constitution gives an even wider set of rights to free expression (in paragraph 2!) than the US Constitution, or so it has been held.
Interesting question, by the way.
We see attempts by “the man” to restrain free speech, in many ways, to maintain robotic conformity, including even plainly political speech: at political conventions, using chained in areas as free speech zones, and arresting in advance people who plan to video the demonstrations to be able to bring evidence to court against the police. This amounts to suppression of evidence, by the police, so they should be held to a higher standard of proof in cases such as these.