Hand Washing As Indication Of Moral Threat
Christopher Philip
Over the course of four experiments, researchers Chen-Bo Zhong and Katie Liljenquist found evidence that washing the hands – the “Macbeth effect,” is an indication that physically cleaning one’s hands alleviates the upsetting consequences of unethical behaviour, and reduces the threat to one’s moral self image.
Our religious history is littered with references to ‘cleansing’ of the soul from sins. When we find ourselves in need of purity we seek to disinfect our bodies. Even baptism is a physical washing, bathing and cleansing – with water. We find this in Christians, Mandaeanists, and Sikhs. Physical cleansing is also central to Islam and Hinduisum which both involve rituals of body purity.
“Given the psychological, physiological, and neurological overlap between physical and moral disgust, physical cleansing acts that mitigate physical disgust might also reduce social or moral disgust, thereby alleviating moral condemnation” say the authors in their paper appearing in the Journal Science.
Lady Macbeth, a product of Shakespeare’s imagination, may have had origins in our deep psychology. She exclaimed, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” as she tried to wash away her bloodied conscience. Rather, this may have been a product of her desire for a pure mind over that of a pure garment.
To uncover whether physical washing was associated with psychological morality, the researchers conducted three studies.
In the first study participants were either asked to recall an ethical or unethical behaviour. Afterwards, they were asked to complete a word-fragment game aimed at testing their emotional thought processes covertly. They were presented with the fragments “w_ _ h”, “sh_ _ er”, “s _ _p.” If they completed them as “wash”, “shower” and “soap” they would score them as 3 for words related to cleansing but if they were completed as “wish”, “shaker” and “step” they would score zero.
The researchers found the result they had predicted: Those who were instructed to present an unethical memory, tended to produce more cleansing related words. This suggests that unethical priming lead to cognitive effects.
In the second study participants were asked to hand-copy either an ethical story or an unethical story. The ethical story read as follows:
Two years ago, when I was a junior partner at a prestigious law firm, I was coming up for promotion against another junior partner, Chris. For several months, Chris had been working on a major case for the city that would make or break his career at the firm. However, he could not locate a key zoning document, without which, it was unlikely that he would have sufficient evidence to successfully argue his case. Late one evening, as I was rummaging through a corner filing cabinet, I happened to come across the zoning document that Chris was in desperate need of. I pulled it from the cabinet and placed it without a note on Chris’ desk, knowing that he would be so relieved when he arrived to work the next morning.
In the unethical condition, they copied the same story except this time the ending was converted to read “I pulled it from the cabinet and walked over to the office shredder, knowing that my promotion would now be secured.”
After the experiment, the subjects were presented with various cleansing products included Dove shower soap, Crest toothpaste, Windex cleaner, Lysol disinfectant, and Tide detergent; other products included Post-it Notes, Nantucket Nectars juice, Energizer batteries, Sony CD cases, and Snickers bars.
As predicted the unethical story increased the desirability of the cleansing products as compared to the copying the ethical story whereas no difference was found between the conditions for the non-cleasing products.
In the third experiment, the procedure was repeated, but with a new twist. At the end of the study, the participants were only offered either a pencil or an antiseptic wipe. Those in the unethical condition took antiseptic wipes at a rate of 75%, whereas those in the ethical condition did so only at a rate of 37.5%.
The final study was conducted much like the first study except the participants were asked to recall only a non-ethical memory and write it out at a computer terminal. After the report, one half of the subjects were instructed to wash their hands. They were told this was part of the recommendation by the “Research Protection Board” as “protocol” after using public computers. The other group did not receive these instructions.
At the completion of the study, the students were requested to help the graduate student with another study for which no compensation was given. It was explained that she needed more data for her dissertation. The researchers predicted that the subjects who had a chance to wash their hands would be less likely to offer to volunteer as their “sins would have been washed away” and they wouldn’t be driven by guilt to help.
The researchers found that this was exactly the case with only 40.9% of students who cleansed offering to help, whereas 73.9% of those who hadn’t had a chance to wash did so.
The Take Away Message
The results speak for themselves. When people feel that they are behaving unethically, they will seek to wash away their sins.
This was demonstrated through mental accessibility of cleansing related words, a greater desire for cleansing products and a greater likelihood of taking antiseptic produces. As well, when impure thoughts could not be washed away, subjects volunteered more generously to try to modulate their fears in other ways.
The researchers conclude that “Daily hygiene routines such as washing hands, as simple and benign as they might seem, can deliver a powerful antidote to threatened morality, enabling people to truly wash away their sins.”
It seems that “pure disgust and moral disgust not only lead to similar facial expressions and physiological activation but also recruit partially overlapping brain regions.”
This makes it easy for the body language reader to detect a person’s ethical truancies. A quick trip to the wash station after a perceived ethical transgression can be a “tell.”
Often, a desire for hand-washing happens by scratching the hands as they begin to sweat creating discomfort. The hands may also cup together and be shoved into pockets to hide the discomfort from sight.
As new research is published linking the brain and body – cognitive embodiment, we will see more evidence of the link between nonverbal communication and it’s hidden meaning. Often the links are quite intuitive as our thoughts are often guided through metaphor.
Evidence is mounting that our minds are programmed and grounded with the real physical world and body, and not, as previously believed, detached and working independently.
Resources
Chen-Bo Zhong and Katie Liljenquist. Washing Away Your Sins: Threatened Morality And Physical Cleansing. Science. 2006; 313, 1451.
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