Abstract: Lu, Lee, Gino, and Galinsky (2018) recently proposed a “causal effect of psychologically experiencing a polluted (vs. clean) environment on unethical behavior” (p. 340) and mediation of this effect by increased anxiety. Supporting their first hypothesis, Lu and colleagues reported a positive effect of air pollution on annual crime rates in 9,360 U.S. cities. Moreover, correlation analyses supported the proposed mediation by anxiety when dishonesty was measured after participants saw photographs of clean or polluted environments. Here, we argue that Lu and colleagues’ theory is incompatible with other evidence on unethical behavior and thus overly broad.
First, the hypothesis that air pollution directly causes crime conflicts with ample evidence that crime rates are higher in summer than in winter (McDowall, Loftin, & Pate, 2012), plausibly because of higher temperatures increasing frustration and aggression and changes in individuals’ activity patterns (Hipp, Curran, Bollen, & Bauer, 2004). In turn, air pollution is markedly higher in winter than in summer (Massey, Kulshrestha, Masih, & Taneja, 2012), which is mainly because of emissions from increased use of heating and vehicles. That seasonal trends of crime rates and air pollution are exactly opposed is difficult to reconcile with Lu and colleagues’ hypothesis of a causal pollution–crime link.
A more restrictive version of Lu and colleagues’ theory might be that pollution has incremental predictive validity for crime over and above seasonal trends. Indeed, Bondy, Roth, and Sager (2020) showed that the Air Quality Index (AQI) has incremental validity beyond temperature and other control variables on crime. However, the effect was confined to less severe offenses (e.g., pickpocketing), and null effects occurred for more severe offenses (e.g., murder). Moreover, the AQI includes ground-level ozone, which is negatively correlated with the pollutants used in Lu and colleagues’ operationalization of pollution. Likewise, Herrnstadt, Heyes, Muehlegger, and Saberian (2018) showed incremental effects of ozone and particulate matter on crime rates when controlling for temperature. However, these effects were limited to specific pollutants and violent crimes (e.g., assault). The authors therefore concluded that “this seems to be a story about violence - not criminality in general” (p. 23). Overall, it thus remains unresolved whether pollution generally affects unethical behavior beyond seasonal trends. In Study 1, we addressed this question using monthly data on air pollution and crime rates.
Second, Lu and colleagues provide only limited evidence that anxiety causes unethical behavior. In their Studies 2 and 3, participants imagined living in a clean versus polluted city depicted on photographs. However, “experiencing” air pollution in this way might simply increase negative mood; thus, other emotional states (e.g., anger, negative affect, frustration) than anxiety may have increased unethical behavior. Indeed, “investigations of ‘an emotion’ are most probably investigations of several simultaneous emotions” (Polivy, 1981, p. 816). Thus, measuring both anxiety and dishonesty as dependent variables of the experimental manipulation and testing mediation can provide only weak evidence for the supposed mediator because of possible confounding variables (Fiedler, Schott, & Meiser, 2011). Other studies in which the causal effect of anxiety on unethical behavior was investigated by manipulating mood (e.g., H. Zhang, Shi, Zhou, Ma, & Tang, 2018) suffer from similar limitations.
Sidestepping the requirement for mood manipulations, we tested whether a stronger inclination toward experiencing anxiety is associated with increased unethical behavior. Specifically, in Study 2, we investigated whether trait anxiety as assessed by HEXACO Emotionality and its Anxiety facet (Ashton & Lee, 2007) is positively related to dishonesty. Originally, Lu and colleagues’ theory was concerned with state anxiety, defined as distress or physiological arousal in reaction to the potential for undesirable outcomes (Brooks & Schweitzer, 2011). However, state anxiety is (by definition) what individuals high in trait anxiety should more likely experience across various situations. Thus, unless Lu and colleagues are referring to some form of state anxiety that is independent of trait anxiety, their reasoning implies a positive correlation between trait anxiety and dishonesty.
Indeed, Kouchaki and Desai (2015) showed that both state and trait anxiety are positively linked to unethical behavior at work. Nevertheless, they explicitly limited the generality of their conclusions, because “anxiety sometimes may act as a motivator of ethical [italics added] behavior” (p. 371). Likewise, mortality salience (linked to the potential of experiencing anxiety) reduced dishonest behavior when honesty was made salient (Schindler et al., 2019), and social anxiety correlated only with some types of unethical behavior (Wowra, 2007). Other studies provided further evidence against a relation of trait anxiety (operationalized by emotionality, neuroticism, or emotional stability) to hypothetical and actual criminal behavior (e.g., Aseltine, Gore, & Gordon, 2000; Rentfrow, Gosling, & Potter, 2008; van Gelder & de Vries, 2012). In Study 2, we tested whether trait anxiety is also unrelated to incentivized dishonest behavior using a large-scale reanalysis.
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Our analyses and reanalyses provided consistent evidence against the generality of a causal effect of air pollution on unethical behavior via anxiety. First, pollution showed no incremental effect on crime rates above opposing seasonal trends. Second, trait anxiety was unrelated to dishonest behavior. These findings clearly conflict with Lu and colleagues’ broad hypotheses, demonstrating that neither air pollution nor anxiety can be considered general causes of unethical behavior.
As a remedy, Lu and colleagues may specify more precisely which types of “air pollution” (e.g., experienced vs. objective, types of pollutants) and anxiety (e.g., specific versions of state anxiety, negative emotions) lead to different aspects of unethical behavior (e.g., dishonesty, violence). For instance, Lu and colleagues’ theory could be restricted to (a) specific pollutants, (b) a 6-month lag between peaks in pollution and crime, (c) a subset of crimes (even though we consistently found null effects), (d) specific emotional states elicited by their experimental manipulation, or (e) specific types of state anxiety that are independent of trait anxiety.
Indeed, such restrictions and the fact that they require further theoretical justifications (e.g., why should there be a 6-month delay?) may not appear attractive. However, theory revision is the straightforward option that fosters scientific progress. Thus, we encourage Lu and colleagues to revise their claims in terms of generality and scope and thereby exclude those portions of the “empirical content” (in terms of falsifiability; Popper, 2002) of their theory that our and other evidence conflicts with.
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