It appears that an element of Lady Macbeth may reside in most of us. The metaphorical desire to wash away one’s sins is not just wishful thinking but evidence of an innate psychological association between moral and physical cleanliness, according to a new study.
Those who were given an opportunity to wash their hands after recalling incidents of immoral behaviour showed signs of a clearer conscious than those who had not washed.
“After we feel morally threatened, we have this deep psychological urge to cleanse ourselves,” says Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto, Canada, who led the study.
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