Cleanliness at the gym leads to dirty doings, they say

Dire doings at the gym, after cleansing. Ditto at the religious bath. So says this study: “Being Clean and Acting Dirty: The Paradoxical Effect of Self-Cleansing,” Thalma E. Lobel [pictured here], Allon Cohen, Lior Kalay Shahin, Shimon Malov, Yaniv Golan and Shani Busnach, Ethics and Behavior, epub June 27, 2014. (Thanks to Neil Martin for bringing […]

The Influence of Time of Day on Unethical Behavior

What time is it? That simple question gains new meaning in this study: “The Morning Morality Effect: The Influence of Time of Day on Unethical Behavior,” Maryam Kouchaki [pictured here] and Isaac H. Smith, Psychological Science, epub October 28, 2013. (Thanks to investigator Cheryl Isley for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Harvard […]

Further Finding About Morality: Backpack-Induced Morality

Morality may involve more than the relative lengths of a person’s fingers. Behold a soon-to-be-published study about backpacks: “The Burden of Guilt: Heavy Backpacks, Light Snacks, and Enhanced Morality,” Maryam Kouchaki, Francesca Gino [pictured, tinily, here], and Ata Jami, in press, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2013. The authors, at Harvard University and the University of […]

Moral judgment and the relative lengths of your fingers

You may find it hard to argue against, or even to begin arguing for, the line of reasoning in this study. It shows how a people’s capacity to make moral judgments is related to the relative lengths of two of their fingers: “Testosterone administration modulates moral judgments depending on second-to-fourth digit ratio,” Estrella R. Montoya, […]

Mathematics, Morally

Eugenia Cheng [pictured here] thought long and hard about the, or at least a, relationship between mathematics and morality. She wrote up those thoughts and delivered them in a talk called “Mathematics, Morally” on 23rd January, 2004, at the Cambridge University Society for the Philosophy of Mathematics. Cheng writes: The first thing to be clear about is that […]

Prof understands psychopaths, morality

Professor Marc Hauser of Harvard University, author of a range of articles, is now accused of research misconduct. Among his publications (these specific articles are not being criticized, that we know of): “Is Morality Natural?“, Newsweek, September 22, 2008. “Psychopaths know right from wrong but don’t care,” Social Cognitive and Affected Neuroscience, published online: January […]