This Is Why You're Mean

by Zoe Pollock

A new study says that people who are physically clean feel superior to others and are prone to judge other people or social issues more harshly. In one experiment:

Hundreds of participants [who] were told to read a short passage that began “My hair feels clean and light. My breath is fresh. My clothes are pristine and like new” made harsher moral judgements about 16 social issues compared with those primed to feel dirty by reading a passage that read “My hair feels oily and heavy. My breath stinks. I feel so dirty.”

I credit all future kindnesses to my distaste for showering.