Lying and Washing

I think I’ve found the connection between political mendacity (aka, a politician’s moving lips) and the name for our nation’s capital. Naïvely, I had always thought that Washington, D.C. was named for our illustrious first President, “Cherry Tree” George. Now, however, scholars at Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan may have a more plausible reason as to why the District of Columbia is named “Washington” or, more literally, Washingtown.

The study is published in the latest issue of Psychological Science (a journal of the Association for Psychological Science) and summarized by the September 30^th AOLHealth.com. It seems that a series of experiments, outlined below, focusing on human behavior after obvious lying have shown a proclivity in liars (as contrasted with truth-tellers) to be more prone to want to use mouthwash or wash their hands after their little acts of mendacity. “Wash your mouth out with soap, young man!” might have more of a logical basis than we might have once assumed, it appears.

“‘Not only do people want to clean after a dirty deed, they want to clean the specific body part involved,’ [said] study author Norbert Schwarz, a psychologist at the university's Institute for Social Research … Schwarz and co-author Spike W.S. Lee asked 87 students to pretend they were lawyers who were competing with an imaginary coworker, ‘Chris,’ for a promotion. They were told to picture finding an important document Chris had misplaced. If they gave it back to him, it would help his career and harm theirs… Participants were instructed to send Chris an e-mail or leave him a voicemail message in which they either told him the truth -- that they'd discovered the lost report -- or lied to him, saying they couldn't find the missing paper.

“The subjects then had to rate how much they wanted certain products, including mouthwash and hand sanitizer, and what they were willing to pay for them. They were told the items were the focus of a market research survey…The students who had lied on the phone felt a stronger desire for mouthwash and were willing to pay more for it than those who hadn't told the truth over e-mail, the authors said. But those who lied over e-mail had a greater wish for hand sanitizer and were willing to pay more for it than those who'd fibbed on the phone, according to the research… Those who had been truthful had less of an urge to buy either product… In other words, the scientists concluded, verbal lies compelled the liars to want to buy mouthwash; lying with their hands by typing an untruthful e-mail made them more drawn to hand sanitizer.” AOL.

So if you’re feeling “dirty,” and you don’t have actual dirt on your hands, find a mirror and take a good look. On the other hand, folks might want to consider investing in soap and mouthwash companies, whose products are particularly popular in D.C. and New York City, adjacent to the Wall Street mavens who ply their trade with winks and cackles.

I’m Peter Dekom, and this is interesting… no?