Guilt washes away
Experiments suggest a scrub eases conscience
If you’re trying to cleanse a guilty conscience, soap and water can do the trick. According to a University of Toronto study published today in the journal Science, washing your hands or showering after impure thoughts or deeds can literally scrub your mind of guilty pangs on a subconscious level.
“We showed that physical cleansing alleviates the upsetting consequences of unethical behaviour and reduces threats to one’s moral self image,” says the study, co-authored by Chen-Bo Zhong, an assistant professor of organizational behaviour at the U of T’s Rotman School of Management.
“Daily hygiene routines such as washing hands, as simple and benign as they may seem, can deliver a powerful antidote to threatened morality,” Zhong writes.
He labelled the phenomenon the “Macbeth Effect”, after Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, who famously scrubbed away at that “damned spot” on her hands after the murder of a king.
Zhong and his team devised a series of four experiments that involved about 165 undergraduate students at Chicago’s Northwestern University.
The experiments tested the psychological connection between physical and moral cleanliness, or the soothing effect that washing can have on the conscience.
[CLB: If you have access to the research paper, I'd like to read a copy. These results may have an interesting bearing on my day job advising others on ethics and integrity.]
2 Comments on "Guilt washes away":
I have not read the study and can not contribute to their findings specifically.
But I do study 'energy work' and I have been taught that our energy fields pick up grim just like our physical bodies. Only this grim comes more in the form of "thoughts". This negative energy attaches to us and there are some fairly simple cleansing technics to rid ourselves of this "dirty energy". Showering is one of them. In fact it is recommended that we shower when we arrive home at the end of the work day, to wash away all the stress and negative interactions of the day before you try to relax and interact with your social circle, both to help yourself and to prevent the negative energy from being passed on.
What is energy work?
Here's what Google had to suggest: Alternative Medicine Foundation Inc.
"Energy work is a general term for modalities that are based on the idea that the human body consists of energy fields that can be stimulated through various techniques in order to promote wellness. The concept of energy fields as a vital life force can be traced back to the oldest medical systems and is known as Qi in China, ki in Japan, and prana in India.
Some energy modalities, such as acupuncture and shiatsu, have their roots in ancient medicine, while others, such as therapeutic touch and polarity therapy, are a contemporary and eclectic interpretation of one or more ancient practices. But the underlying basis of all of these modalities is the idea of energy flow in the body. Practitioners of these modalities believe that keeping the body's energy in a balanced state is the key to maintaining health. In each of these modalities, the practitioner seeks to help the patient rebalance energy in the body, by stimulating, unblocking, or dispersing it. The result is a greater sense of energy and wellbeing."
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