Huangfu and team studied links between workplace cleanliness and employee attitudes toward counterproductive work behavior (CWB). They learned, working with a group of participants in China, that “participants working in a clean environment tended to regard CWB as less acceptable than did those in a dirty environment, that is, a cleaner environment led to harsher judgment. Results suggested that there is a metaphorical association between environmental cleanliness and moral judgment.” This research confirms how important it is to consider “maintainability” when workplaces are being developed.
Gang Huangfu, Feng Lv, Cheng Sheng, and Xiaochen Shi. 2017. “Effect of Workplace Environment Cleanliness on Judgment of Counterproductive Work Behavior.” Social Behavior and Personality, vol. 45, no. 4, pp. 599-604.
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.