Behavioral psychologist Chantal van der Leest examines our behavior in the workplace: who or what determines our daily decisions? Today: our common sense
The outstretched hand just kind of lingered between us. Since I’ve contracted just about every possible virus in recent months, from colds to corona and stomach flu, I have decided not to shake any more. In health care, they have known for a long time that this form of greeting is an unhealthy exchange of germs. Nowadays I try to get rid of it with a boxing or an exuberant swing.
Yet I see more and more people shaking hands again. Maybe out of habit, maybe because we don’t believe that something that feels so familiar can be sickening. But feeling often points us in the wrong direction. People neurotically hang over a public toilet seat and therefore make a mess of it, while the chance that you will get sick from sitting on a toilet seat is just about zero point zero. On the other hand, most have no problem touching their phone, keyboard or cash, while it is much more likely to spread disease.
‘Use common sense’ is often said to us when we have to make decisions about hygiene and whether you can still eat something. The question is how good are we at this. Our common sense seems to be primarily an emotional decision maker. Here are funny studies done by American psychologist Paul Rozin. Food that has been touched by a dead but well-cleaned cockroach, or chocolate fudge in the form of a turd: gétver. It won’t make you sick, but we don’t want it anyway.
Disgust goes beyond food alone. Wearing clothes that belonged to a murderer, sleeping in a bed of someone who died in it: however clean, we abhor the thought. We can also feel this in other people, opinions or cultures. I still get sick thinking about a team leader I once had: always freshly showered, but he had no moral compass at all and was okay with lying for his own gain. Just thinking about him makes me involuntarily wrinkle my nose and upper lip.
After some hesitation, I take the outstretched hand and give a firm handshake. If everyone does it it can’t be so bad after all, my sanity soothes.
Would you like to know more about psychology and work? Read Chantal’s books Why perfectionists are rarely happy, 13 tips against perfectionism (2021) and Our fallible thinking at work (2018).
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