Macbeth Effect Research Articles

Wash Away Immorality and Double StandardsPsychological Mechanisms by Which Cleansing Affects Moral Judgment under Different Subjects

Embodied cognitive and conceptual metaphor theories state that physical cleansing can influence peoples moral judgments. However, the mechanism of cleansing affecting moral judgment is still not clear. Therefore, this research introduced the moral subject as a moderator of the process of cleansing affecting moral judgment and the moral self-image as a mediator to reveal the psychological mechanism by which physical cleansing affects moral judgment (Macbeth effect). Study 1 used the method of reading a third-person story to initiate a sense of immorality, washing hands with hand sanitizers for cleansing, to explore the moral judgment impact on different personal stories; Study 2 used the method of recalling of own immoral events to initiate immoral feelings, washing hands directly for cleansing. Both two studies failed to validate embodied cleaning effect. The findings suggest that physical cleansing does not affect moral judgment, nor does it affect the moral self-image, and cannot explore the moderating role of moral subject.

Does Networking Make People Feel “Dirty”? Reconsidering Evidence in Casciaro, Gino, Kouchaki, 2014

In 2014, Casciaro, Gino, and Kouchaki (hereafter CGK) published an influential paper for our understanding of networking behaviors. Specifically, the authors offered experimental evidence that people view networking actions as morally impure, which leads them to feel physically dirty when networking, which ultimately heightens the mental accessibility of cleansing-related concepts. In the present paper, I challenge the theoretical premise and the empirical evidence presented in CGK. To that end, I present a well-powered pre-registered experiment aimed at 1) replicating CGK’s main effect, 2) replicating the psychological mechanism that underpins CGK’s finding (i.e., the Macbeth Effect), and 3) establishing a “maximum positive control” (Hilgard, 2021) for any effect of networking on people’s desire for cleansing. This experiment reveals a null result on the effect documented by CGK (d = .02), a null result on the Macbeth effect (d = .02), and a maximum positive control effect that is much smaller than the original finding reported in CGK (d = .51 vs. d = .98). I finally discuss other incidental issues in CGK, and conclude that there is no evidence that people experience physical dirtiness when networking.

A study of the psychological effect

The lady Mac-Beth effect is a condition in which an individual urge to risen their hands or body when they have a feeling that they have done something wrong i.e., which is inappropriate in order to clean their conscience. So, this study is to find how much people clean themselves or wash their hands indeed because of their guilty conscience. People are always not having a tendency of washing hands or bathing in can be a cause and effect of their remorseful morality. It not always having a physical cleanliness there can be an alternative for purifying their mortified morality. Studies have exhibited that people keep themselves clean indeed for cleaning their sins. Famous study of Zhong and Liljenquist (2006) was replicated but didn’t found the evidence of Macbeth effect. In further findings, observed about physical purity as an attainment of moral purity could show a sign of Macbeth effect. In addition, few studied have also showed the brain areas which are involved in the guiltiness due to immoral deed.

“Macbeth Effect”: The link between physical cleanliness and moral judgement

“Macbeth Effect”: The link between physical cleanliness and moral judgement

Mean diffusivity related to rule-breaking guilt: the Macbeth effect in the sensorimotor regions

Guilt, a self-conscious emotion, includes self-focused role taking and also correlates with other-oriented role-taking. Excess guilt proneness might be relevant to obsessive compulsive disorders. The white matter (WM) neural correlates of the degree of guilt have not yet been determined. We hypothesized that the WM structures involved in feelings of guilt are associated with social and moral cognition (inferior parietal lobule [IPL], prefrontal cortex [PFC], and cingulate), and aimed to visualize this using diffusion MRI. We investigated the association between regional WM structures (WM volume, and fractional anisotropy, and mean diffusivity [MD]), and feelings of guilt in 1196 healthy, young students using MRI and the Guilty Feeling Scale, which comprises interpersonal situation (IPS; guilt from hurting friends) and rule-breaking situation (RBS; deontological guilt) scores. The primary novel finding presented here is that MD in the right somatosensory and motor cortices from arm to hand were positively correlated with RBS scores. Further, consistent with our hypothesis, RBS scores were positively correlated with MD in the same regions. These results would be predicted by the Macbeth effect, an obsession with dirt leading to hand-washing rituals resulting from guilt, made famous by the Shakespearian character Lady Macbeth. “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?” William Shakespeare (Shakespeare, 1606) Macbeth.

The Relationship Between Immorality and Cleansing

Abstract. In a widely publicized set of studies, participants who were primed to consider unethical events preferred cleansing products more than did those primed with ethical events ( Zhong & Liljenquist, 2006 ). This tendency to respond to moral threat with physical cleansing is known as the Macbeth Effect. Several subsequent efforts, however, did not replicate this relationship. The present manuscript reports the results of a meta-analysis of 15 studies testing this relationship. The weighted mean effect size was small across all studies (g = 0.17, 95% CI [0.04, 0.31]), and nonsignificant across studies conducted in independent laboratories (g = 0.07, 95% CI [−0.04, 0.19]). We conclude that there is little evidence for an overall Macbeth Effect; however, there may be a Macbeth Effect under certain conditions.

Wiping your conscience clean

The Macbeth effect is a proposed phenomenon, whereby feelings of immorality activate a desire to cleanse. Extensions of this theory suggest that cleansing alleviates immoral feelings, thus reducing the urge to engage in compensatory behaviors, such as volunteering. We examined the Macbeth effect and volunteerism in undergraduate students with high levels of obsessive-compulsive disorder contamination concerns ( n = 164). Participants underwent an immorality, anxiety, or neutral emotion-induction condition and subsequently cleansed their hands or performed a control task. For participants in the immorality condition, increased ratings of distress were associated with increased accessibility of cleansing words. Furthermore, individuals in the immorality condition who cleansed volunteered for significantly less time than those who did not cleanse. We discuss findings in relation to the literature on the Macbeth effect and mental contamination.

Macbeth Arabia: moral threat and cleansing-related construct accessibility in Arab women

ABSTRACTThe “Macbeth effect” denotes a relationship between threatened moral integrity (e.g., guilt) and cleansing-related cognition and behaviours. This idea has received empirical support and may have implications for our understanding obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Most previous explorations of the Macbeth effect, however, have been undertaken in Europe or North America. This study aimed to test the effect among Muslim, Arabic-speaking, citizens of the United Arab Emirates. Experimental participants (N = 112) completed a task designed to threaten moral integrity (recalling past misdeeds), followed by a word-fragment completion task, where cleansing and non-cleansing completions were possible. A control-group (N = 95) completed only the word-fragment completion task. Participants recalling past misdeeds made significantly more cleansing-related word-fragment completions than their control-group counterparts. This study extends evidence of a Macbeth effect to an Arabic-speaking Muslim population and may have implications for our understanding of OCD within this population.

Morality and soap in engineers and social scientists: the Macbeth effect interacts with professions.

Several studies demonstrate that physical cleansing is actually efficacious to cope with threatened morality, thus demonstrating that physical and moral purity are psychologically interwoven. This so-called Macbeth effect has been explained, for example, by the conceptual metaphor theory that suggests an embodiment of the moral purity metaphor. Recent research draws attention to individual differences when using conceptual metaphors. The present study shows that the moral purity link interacts with different professions. Engineering and social science students were asked to hand copy a text in which the protagonist behaved in an immoral way (or in a moral way, control condition). Subsequently, they had to rate cleansing and other products. Both groups of participants showed higher ratings for cleansing products when hand copying the unethical story, but this Macbeth effect was significantly stronger for the group of engineering students. The results demonstrate that the Macbeth effect interacts with individual differences of the chosen profession. The outcome is discussed in terms of recent theories on individual differences in disgust sensitivity.

Metaphorical Association Between Physical and Moral Purity in the Context of One’s Own Transgressions and Immoral Behavior of Others

Abstract The Macbeth effect is a metaphorical association between physical and moral cleanliness - transgression of one’s morality leads to increased desire to clean oneself (Zhong & Liljenquist, 2006). Earlier studies examined psychological associations between bodily and moral purity according to controlled processes, such as rating product desirability. The influence of the Macbeth effect on more automatic processes (stimuli processing speed) was explored in three studies. We examined whether thinking about one’s moral transgression (Studies 1 and 3) or others’ immoral behavior (Study 2) contributed to slower reaction times (RTs) to stimuli related to physical purification. It seems that automatic processes may also be affected by the metaphor “morality is purity”: It is manifested in slower RTs to stimuli associated with bodily cleansing when recalling one’s own past transgressions (Study 3) and in slower responses to words connected with purification of the external world while recalling immoral behaviors of others (Study 2).

Dirty deeds and dirty bodies: Embodiment of the Macbeth effect is mapped topographically onto the somatosensory cortex.

The theory of embodied cognition claims that knowledge is represented in modal systems derived from perception. Recent behavioral studies found evidence for this hypothesis, for example, by linking moral purity with physical cleansing (the Macbeth effect). Neurophysiological approaches provided further support by showing an involvement of sensorimotor cortices for embodied metaphors. However, the exact role of this brain region for embodied cognitions remains to be cleared. Here we demonstrate that the involvement of the sensorimotor cortex for the embodied metaphor of moral-purity is somatotopically organized. Participants enacted in scenarios where they had to perform immoral or moral acts either with their mouths or their hands. Results showed that mouthwash products were particularly desirable after lying in a voice mail and hand wash products were particularly desirable after writing a lie, thus demonstrating that the moral-purity metaphor is specific to the sensorimotor modality involved in earlier immoral behavior. FMRI results of this interaction showed activation in sensorimotor cortices during the evaluation phase that was somatotopically organized with respect to preceding lying in a voice mail (mouth-area) or in a written note (hand-area). Thus, the results provide evidence for a central role of the sensorimotor cortices for embodied metaphors.

Hand washing induces a clean slate effect in moral judgments: a pupillometry and eye-tracking study.

Physical cleansing is commonly understood to protect us against physical contamination. However, recent studies showed additional effects on moral judgments. Under the heading of the “Macbeth effect” direct links between bodily cleansing and one’s own moral purity have been demonstrated. Here we investigate (1) how moral judgments develop over time and how they are altered by hand washing, (2) whether changes in moral judgments can be explained by altered information sampling from the environment, and (3) whether hand washing affects emotional arousal. Using a pre-post control group design, we found that morality ratings of morally good and bad scenes acquired more extreme values in the control group over time, an effect that was fully counteracted by intermediate hand washing. This result supports the notion of a clean slate effect by hand washing. Thereby, eye-tracking data did not uncover differences in eye movement behavior that may explain differences in moral judgments. Thus, the clean slate effect is not due to altered information sampling from the environment. Finally, compared to the control group, pupil diameter decreased after hand washing, thus demonstrating a direct physiological effect. The results shed light on the physiological mechanisms behind this type of embodiment phenomenon.

Lying and the Subsequent Desire for Toothpaste: Activity in the Somatosensory Cortex Predicts Embodiment of the Moral-Purity Metaphor

It is well known from literature and religious ceremonies that there is a link between physical cleansing and moral transgressions. Only recently, psychological experiments explored this association and demonstrated that a threat to moral purity increases the demand of physical cleansing. Moreover, it has been shown that physical cleansing is actually efficacious to cope with threatened morality. This so-called Macbeth effect has been explained by an embodiment of the moral-purity metaphor. We tested this hypothesis by means of an functional magnetic resonsce imaging (fMRI) experiment. Participants were instructed to enact scenarios including either an immoral act (lying) or a moral deed (telling the truth). Subsequently, the participants were asked to rate the desirableness of various products. Results revealed that participants rated cleansing products (but not other goods) more desirable after performing an immoral than after a moral act. This Macbeth effect was accompanied by an active cortical network including sensorimotor brain areas during rating of cleansing products (but not while evaluating noncleansing goods). The results demonstrate neurobiological evidence for an embodiment of the moral-purity metaphor. Thus, abstract thoughts about morality can be grounded in sensory experiences.

Out, Damned Spot: Can the “Macbeth Effect” Be Replicated?

Zhong and Liljenquist (2006) reported evidence of a “Macbeth Effect” in social psychology: a threat to people's moral purity leads them to seek, literally, to cleanse themselves. In an attempt to build upon these findings, we conducted a series of direct replications of Study 2 from Z&L's seminal report. We used Z&L's original materials and methods, investigated samples that were more representative of the general population, investigated samples from different countries and cultures, and substantially increased the power of our statistical tests. Despite multiple good-faith efforts, however, we were unable to detect a “Macbeth Effect” in any of our experiments. We discuss these findings in the context of recent concerns about replicability in the field of experimental social psychology.

Macbeth and the Joystick: Evidence for moral cleansing after playing a violent video game

The “Macbeth effect” denotes the phenomenon that people wish to cleanse themselves physically when their moral self has been threatened. In this article we argue that such a threat to one's moral self may also result from playing a violent video game, especially when the game involves violence against humans. The cleansing effect should be particularly strong among inexperienced players who do not play video games on a regular basis, because frequent players may apply other strategies to alleviate any moral concerns. Seventy students played one of two violent video games and were then asked to select 4 out of 10 gift products, half of which were hygiene products. Inexperienced players reported more moral distress when the game involved violence against humans (compared to violence against objects), and selected more hygiene products in this condition than frequent video game players. Frequent players, on the other hand, reported less moral distress, irrespective of the game they played.

The Uncertain Universality of the Macbeth Effect with a Spanish Sample

Recently a psychological mechanism has been proposed between bodily purity and moral purity: the "Macbeth effect". The act of washing their hands seems to free individuals of their guilt. However, the universality of this psychological mechanism is an empirical question that should be studied. In four studies we replicated the original Zhong & Liljenquist's experiments with Spanish samples. We were unsuccessful in replicating the Zhong & Liljenquist's results that supported cleansing as a psychological mechanism for compensating guilty: results couldn't confirm an increased mental accessibility of cleansing-related concepts or even a greater desire for cleansing products, neither a greater likelihood of taking antiseptic wipes. In addition we didn't find that physical cleansing alleviates the upsetting consequences of unethical behaviour. Spanish samples showed sensibility to morality and helping behaviour but not with cleansing as a way to reduce their threatened morality.

Washing Away Your Sins: Threatened Morality and Physical Cleansing

Physical cleansing has been a focal element in religious ceremonies for thousands of years. The prevalence of this practice suggests a psychological association between bodily purity and moral purity. In three studies, we explored what we call the "Macbeth effect"-that is, a threat to one's moral purity induces the need to cleanse oneself. This effect revealed itself through an increased mental accessibility of cleansing-related concepts, a greater desire for cleansing products, and a greater likelihood of taking antiseptic wipes. Furthermore, we showed that physical cleansing alleviates the upsetting consequences of unethical behavior and reduces threats to one's moral self-image. 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.