If you are hoping to make the world a better place, you might want tostock up oncitrus-scented Windex. Apparently, the fresh smell brings out the best in people. In fact, researchers have found a dramatic improvement in ethical behavior when people spend time in a room freshly spritzed with the citrus-scented cleaner.
The study, titled, "The Smell of Virtue," was unusually simple and conclusive. Participants engaged in several tasks,with just one difference--some worked in an unscented room, while others worked in the Windexed room. As a test of whether clean scents would enhance fairness, subjects played a classic trust game. They received $12 in cash, supposedly fromaperson trusting them to divide it fairly.Subjects in clean-scented roomsreturnedon average, $5.33 compared to subjects in the unscented room who gave back $2.81.
Another experiment evaluated whether clean scents affected charitable behavior. Those in thefresh-scentedroom once again demonstrated that the smell of cleanliness is next to godliness. When asked to rate their interest in volunteering for a Habitat for Humanity project, on a scale of one to seven, they averaged 4.21, which was significantly higher than those in the scent-less room, whose interest scored 3.29. They were also much more willing to ante up for the same cause. In fact, 22 percent of participants under the influence of Windex said theyd like todonate money, compared to only 6 percent of those who breathed unscented air.
