Pontius Pilate and Lady Macbeth did it. Why shouldn’t you? According to scientific studies, washing your hands can actually clear a guilty conscience. It works both ways: this act can also help you forgive the moral misstep of other people. The literary figure was so popular with this act that the psychological principle was named after her. Psychologists now call this the Macbeth principle of morality.
In this principle, when people wash their hands, they literally “wash away their sins” as well—or at least it helps them believe this. In a more general note, though, individuals who were put in a clean-smelling environment found it easier to act more charitably and fairly towards strangers compared to people who were put in neutral-smelling environments. That disinfectant odor in hospitals might just do more than kill germs.
Now, a new study was published last Friday in a journal named Science which asked whether the act of washing ones hands can actually wipe the past behaviors off the slate. This includes even everyday decisions, like picking a burger over a salad for lunch. Apparently, when people make even the simplest choices, they make a bit fuss over it. They exaggerate the factors behind every decision.
When you pick one option over another, you immediately feel bad about not feeling the other one. According to the study, the act of washing your hands eliminates this need to justify your decision. However, there’s no guarantee that it will keep off remorse in the long run. And anyway, when it comes to big decisions, engaging in the long-winded justification process isn’t such a bad thing.
I’d like to thank Frederik Desselbrocko for this article he wrote for my blog. It’s pretty… interesting!