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Dirty Hands and Dirty Mouths: Embodiment of the Moral-Purity Metaphor Is Specific to the Motor Modality Involved in Moral Transgression

October 2010
Psychological Science 21(10):1423-5

DOI:10.1177/0956797610382788

Source
PubMed

Project: Embodied metaphors in judgment and decision making

Authors:

Spike W. S. Lee

University of Toronto

Norbert Schwarz

University of Southern California

Participants' mean evaluation of mouthwash and hand sanitizer as a function of the motor modality (mouth or hands) of (a) unethical acts and (b) ethical acts. Error bars represent standard errors of the mean.

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Psychological Science

21(10) 1423 –1425

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DOI: 10.1177/0956797610382788

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Water and soap remove more than physical dirt―they attenuate

guilt from one’s moral transgressions (Zhong & Liljenquist,

2006) and soften one’s judgment of others’ misdeeds (Schnall,

Benton, & Harvey, 2008). Conversely, immoral acts increase the

appeal of physical cleansing (Zhong & Liljenquist, 2006). Such

findings indicate that abstract thought about morality is grounded

in concrete experiences of physical cleanliness (Lakoff &

Johnson, 1999). Natural language use associates this moral-

purity metaphor with specific body parts (e.g., “dirty hands,”

“dirty mouth”), suggesting that the motor modality involved in a

transgression may figure prominently in the embodiment of

moral purity. If so, people should prefer purification of the

“dirty” body part over purification of other body parts.

We tested this conjecture, which is compatible with the

canon of embodiment (Barsalou, 2008; Niedenthal, Barsalou,

Winkielman, Krauth-Gruber, & Ric, 2005), by inducing par-

ticipants to perform the same immoral act (conveying a malev-

olent lie) or moral act (conveying a benevolent message) with

their mouths (by using voice mail) or their hands (by using

e-mail). Their subsequent desire for mouthwash and for hand

sanitizer served as the dependent variables. If the embodiment

of moral purity is independent of motor modality, as previous

research implicitly assumed, both cleaning products should be

more attractive to people after they convey a malevolent mes-

sage than after they convey a benevolent message; if the

embodiment is sensitive to motor modality, however, mouth-

wash should be particularly desirable after lying in a voice

mail, and hand sanitizer should be particularly desirable after

lying in an e-mail. Note, however, that people not only avoid

physical contact with morally tainted people and objects,

but also seek physical contact with virtuous ones (Rozin &

Nemeroff, 1990). Hence, they may not only attempt to remove

the metaphorical residue of immoral acts, but also avoid remov-

ing the residue of virtuous acts. In this case, people would find

mouthwash particularly unappealing after conveying a virtu-

ous message in a voice mail and hand sanitizer particularly

unappealing after conveying a virtuous message in an e-mail.

Method

Eighty-seven undergraduates (34 male, 53 female) participated

in our experiment for course credit and were randomly assigned

to conditions in a 2 (modality: mouth vs. hands) × 2 (ethicality:

unethical vs. ethical) between-subjects design. Told that they

were taking part in a personality study, participants enacted a

scenario modeled after one used by Zhong and Liljenquist

(2006). Each person imagined being a law-firm associate com-

peting for promotion with a colleague, Chris, and finding an

important document that Chris had lost. Returning the docu-

ment would help Chris’s career and hurt the participant’s own

career. The participant was instructed to leave Chris a voice

mail (mouth) or type Chris an e-mail (hands) telling him “who

you are” and explaining that “you could not find his document”

(unethical) or that “you found his document” (ethical). The par-

ticipant actually delivered the message, allegedly to provide

verbal material for personality analysis.

Next, participants rated the desirability of several products

(1 = completely undesirable, 7 = completely desirable) as part

of an ostensible marketing survey and reported how much they

were willing to pay (WTP) for each one (“$__”). The products

included mouthwash and hand sanitizer. The participants were

then given a funnel debriefing. None of them indicated any

suspicion about the experiment’s true purpose.

Results

Desirability and log-transformed WTP data were standardized

and submitted to a 2 (ethicality: ethical, unethical) × 2 (modal-

ity: hands, mouth) × 2 (product: hand sanitizer, mouthwash) ×

2 (measure: desirability, WTP) mixed analysis of variance

Corresponding Author:

Spike W.S. Lee, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan,

530 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043

E-mail: spikelee@umich.edu

Dirty Hands and Dirty Mouths:

Embodiment of the Moral-Purity Metaphor

Is Specific to the Motor Modality Involved

in Moral Transgression

Spike W.S. Lee and Norbert Schwarz

University of Michigan

Received 3/9/10; Revision accepted 4/18/10

Short Report

1424 Lee, Schwarz

(ANOVA), with the last two factors being within subjects. An

Ethicality × Modality × Product interaction, F(1, 81) = 10.29,

p = .002, indicated a significant role of motor modality, which

was not moderated by measure (F < 1 for the four-way inter-

action). The two measures were averaged, with higher scores

indicating higher desirability and WTP.

As shown in Figure 1a, participants evaluated mouthwash

more positively after lying in a voice mail (M = 0.21, SD =

0.72) than after lying in an e-mail (M = –0.26, SD = 0.94),

F(1, 81) = 2.93, p = .03 (one-tailed), d = 0.55 (simple main

effect), but evaluated hand sanitizer more positively after lying

in an e-mail (M = 0.31, SD = 0.76) than after lying in a voice

mail (M = –0.12, SD = 0.86), F(1, 81) = 3.25, p = .04 (one-

tailed), d = 0.53 (simple main effect). The Modality × Product

simple interaction was significant under unethical conditions,

F(1, 81) = 7.45, p = .008.

In contrast, participants evaluated hand sanitizer less posi-

tively after telling the truth in an e-mail (M = –0.33, SD =

0.82) than after telling the truth in a voice mail (M = 0.23,

SD = 0.70), F(1, 81) = 5.02, p = .03, d = 0.74 (simple main

effect). However, modality did not affect their evaluation of

mouthwash, F < 1 (Fig. 1b). The Modality × Product simple

interaction was marginally significant under ethical condi-

tions, F(1, 81) = 3.29, p = .07.

Discussion

These findings indicate that the embodiment of moral purity is

specific to the motor modality involved in a moral transgres-

sion, making purification of the “dirty” body part more desir-

able than purification of other body parts. Consistent with this

observation, reanalysis of earlier findings shows that copying

–0.6

–0.4

–0.2

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

Unethical Acts

Voice Mail: Mouth E-mail: Hands

Evaluation

Hand SanitizerMouthwash

Product

Hand SanitizerMouthwash

Product

–0.6

–0.4

–0.2

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

Ethical Acts

Evaluation

Fig. 1. Participants’ mean evaluation of mouthwash and hand sanitizer as a function of the motor modality (mouth

or hands) of (a) unethical acts and (b) ethical acts. Error bars represent standard errors of the mean.

Embodiment of the Moral-Purity Metaphor 1425

(rather than enacting) a story about immoral others increases

the desire to clean the external world (as reflected in evalua-

tions of detergent and disinfectant, ds = 1.15 and 0.75) more

than the desire to clean one’s own body (as reflected in evalu-

ations of soap, d = 0.37; Zhong & Liljenquist, 2006, Study 2).

Moreover, hand washing influences judgments of others’

transgressions more when the transgressions involve solely

the hands (ds = 0.61–0.81) rather than additional body parts

(ds = 0.28–0.45; Schnall et al., 2008). In addition, our findings

indicate that the embodiment of moral purity extends to virtu-

ous acts: Having typed a virtuous e-mail made hand sanitizer

unappealing, a result suggesting that people may avoid rinsing

away residues of virtue (Bloom, 2009; Rozin & Nemeroff,

1990); however, parallel effects were not observed for mouth-

wash. In natural parlance, metaphorical references to “clean

hands” seem more common and natural than metaphorical ref-

erences to a “clean mouth,” raising the possibility that acces-

sibility of an applicable metaphor is a crucial ingredient for the

observed effects (Chandler & Schwarz, 2009).

Going beyond moral purity, numerous studies have demon-

strated the pervasive effects of embodied metaphors in the

social domain (for reviews, see Landau, Meier, & Keefer, in

press; Williams, Huang, & Bargh, 2009). The present findings

suggest that such effects should be more pronounced when the

motor modality of the metaphor-priming task matches the

motor modality of the downstream judgment and behavior.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with

respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.

Funding

The first author was supported by an R.C. Lee Centenary Scholarship.

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Jan 2009
PSYCHOL SCI

Theories of moral judgment have long emphasized reasoning and conscious thought while downplaying the role of intuitive and contextual influences. However, recent research has demonstrated that incidental feelings of disgust can influence moral judgments and make them more severe. This study involved two experiments demonstrating that the reverse effect can occur when the notion of physical purity is made salient, thus making moral judgments less severe. After having the cognitive concept of cleanliness activated (Experiment 1) or after physically cleansing themselves after experiencing disgust (Experiment 2), participants found certain moral actions to be less wrong than did participants who had not been exposed to a cleanliness manipulation. The findings support the idea that moral judgment can be driven by intuitive processes, rather than deliberate reasoning. One of those intuitions appears to be physical purity, because it has a strong connection to moral purity.

Developmental social cognition and the value of everyday objects. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology How extending your middle finger affects your perception of others: Learned movements influence concept accessibility

Mar 2009
123-128

P Bloom
Fl
J Chandler
N Schwarz

Bloom, P. (2009, February). Developmental social cognition and the value of everyday objects. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Tampa, FL. Chandler, J., & Schwarz, N. (2009). How extending your middle finger affects your perception of others: Learned movements influence concept accessibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 123–128.