Strong Emotions to Corporate Abuse

“In Bad Taste: Evidence for the Oral Origins of Moral Disgust,” an article by psychologist Hannah Chapman at the University of Toronto, proves that immoral acts appear to promote a visceral reaction in people akin to how our bodies react to poison or contaminated food.

We have always known that corporate abuses can evoke strong emotion - just look to the seething anger directed at AIG executives and John Stewart’s ripping of Jim Cramer on The Daily Show - but this goes one step further. It seems that people really can’t help but respond bodily to moral transgressions (we have witnessed this in many a focus group!). GlobeScan has been tracking awareness and reputation impacts on a range of corporate crises - petroleum company environmental problems in the US, corruption scandals in Germany, pesticide contamination in India, financial crashes in the UK, etc. - regardless of the type of scandal, people do indeed respond with a great deal of negativity towards companies when they become aware of perceived misbehaviour.

So, in addition to a range of other reasons why there is a demand for responsible corporate behaviour we can add evolution!