Feelings, nothing more than feelings….

Remember that song? It’s one of the mind worm songs that gets stuck in your head: Paul Anka crooning away about feelings, those warm and fuzzy, touchy-feely, mushy feelings. In the real world, you should know better. Put your feelings aside! After all decisions have to be made rationally, right?

Psychologists at the University of Toronto put this idea to the test. They took two groups of people and gave them all the same two options: tell the truth for no gain or lie to get a reward. To make the decision between the two options, one group was told to be rational about the decision and rule out emotions. The other group was told to go with their gut feelings.

The rational thinkers decided that it was okay to lie–yep, 69% of them rationally convinced themselves that lying was perfectly okay as compared to only 27% of the gut-relying decision makers. The more time subjects had to think about it, the more easy they found it to lie. Take home message: when faced with a decision requiring ethics, your gut is more likely to lead you to behave ethically. However…the same study showed that people preferred to trust a person making their decisions rationally over trusting someone using their gut instincts.

The study’s authors interpreted their results by explaining that by thinking about something long enough, it’s relatively easy to talk one’s self into believing that it’s okay to act unethically. The trick the liars used was to focus on their anticipated reward and rule out their emotions. The flip side, then would be to rule out the (ill-gotten) reward and acknowledge and consult your emotions.

My suggestion is this. When faced with a tricky ethical decision, go with your gut and don't linger over the deliberations. This strategy is far more likely to lead you to the best decision, ethically and morally. If you find yourself wavering, rule out any thought of a reward (remember, avoiding consequences is also a reward) and ask your emotions for guidance. Your gut knows the difference between right and wrong–trusting your instincts is the most rational thing you can possible do.