Recent research, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, hints that people who follow their gut feelings might be less likely to act immorally.
Acting on instinct, as an area of psychological research, has seen relatively little study.
This is partly due to its nebulous nature and the difficulty of pinning down "gut feelings" in an experimental setting.
A new study aims to add some detail to this unmarked territory.
In psychology, gut instinct - or intuition - is defined as the ability to understand something immediately without having to engage conscious reasoning.
To a certain extent, we all allow our instincts to guide us. Most people can remember a time when they were driving a car, lost in thought, and arrived at their destination with virtually no recollection of the journey.
That gives us some idea of the amount of processing and control our brain can have without involving conscious thought.
"Whilst we can seek to make the most rational decisions, in reality most of us combine cognition and affect, meaning that we use both our emotions and the information in front of us to help us decide what to do."
Previous research has shown that when people believe they have acted immorally, the sensation of guilt can induce a feeling of contamination and, consequently, a desire to physically clean themselves.
To test Ward's theory that immoral actions naturally repulse those who follow their gut, she conducted an intriguing test. She investigated how much the participants would be willing to pay for hand cleaning soap shortly after reading the stories.
Ward's hunch was right. Participants who were more likely to follow their gut instinct were also more inclined to pay a higher price for hand cleanser.
the participants that were more likely to follow their gut instinct were less likely to cheat. This backed up Ward's theory nicely.
She concludes that people who are more likely to follow their instinct, after a period of contemplation about a time when they acted immorally, are less likely to cheat.
