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Published February 24, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Researchers have long established that corporations are masters of political spin who paint commercial harms as benefits, blame individuals for industry-created problems, and delay protective regulations through policy capture. Even internally many employees believe what their company leaders say about pure public-minded industry goals. Frequently, though, the claims prove to be knowingly misleading and cause real harm.
This phenomenon has had researchers around the world scratch their heads at the question of “how do corporate executives sleep at night?”
“Knowingly selling harmful products, lying to the public and policy makers, and harassing advocates would surely make anyone truly uncomfortable,” said Dr. Ariela Mendoza of the Center Against Commercial Determinants at Snowfort University. “I know that if I do something wrong or hurt someone, it haunts me in my dreams,” she added. “So, we wanted to find the answer to this puzzle once and for all.”
Dr. Mendoza led twelve collaborators through a study whose results were published this week in the Journal of Business and Health. The findings were both surprising and obvious. Corporate cognitive dissonance is dampened by sleeping on giant bags of money.
The study confirms that personal financial gain is a strong force that can motivate illegal or unethical behavior and provide internal psychological justification for doing it.
“Next, we’ll do some experiments to see what happens if we take the bags of money away,” Dr Mendoza shared.
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