Cleanliness: The Impact of Moral Foundations Theory’s Sanctity/Degradation on Decision Making

How is our desire to behave morally influenced by cleaning the body, specifically tested by washing hands?

Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations theory is grounded in psychology and argues that, despite the differences in moral systems, every person shares the same five moral foundations regardless of culture or group: care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Within economics, we gain positive utility by adhering or appearing to adhere to our own moral matrix comprised of these foundations. However, sometimes we either do not pay attention to or we ignore our moral code, allowing us to make immoral actions. Previous research has shown that certain outside forces, such as being watching or acting in a group, can lead people to behave more morally. My thesis outlines an experiment used to determine if the state of being clean might change our decision making and lead us to behave more morally by increasing the cost of behaving immorally and the benefit of behaving morally. The experiment asked participants to rank moral issues and play the die-under-the-cup paradigm after washing their hands and "cleaning" themselves. The results revealed no significant difference between any combination of groups, suggesting cleanliness does not change decision making. However, several external factors might have impacted the results and more research could be done to ensure accuracy.