Soap, Water Wash Away Buyer’s Remorse

WASHINGTON (ISNS) -- Wish you had gone to London instead of Paris for your vacation? Just wash your hands of it, literally. Soap and water can cleanse the mind of doubts after a tough choice, according to research published Thursday in the journal Science.

The psychological impact of hand washing first made the news in 2006, when Brigham Young University business professor Katie Liljenquist showed that a simple hand wipe can make someone feel less guilty about a past misdeed. It’s been called the “Macbeth Effect”, named for Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, who tried to wash her conscience free of murderous guilt by scrubbing her hands.

“In general, cleanliness seems to be psychologically liberating for people,” said Liljenquist.

Now psychologist Spike W.S. Lee of the University of Michigan has shown that a good hand scrubbing can wash away not only sins but also our regrets about everyday, mundane choices.

A car buyer driving his new BMW off the lot might worry that he made the wrong choice, his mind lingering on the Mercedes he did not choose. Research has shown that the buyer will try to counteract these feelings of regret by focusing on the positive aspects of his new car. He is likely to have a higher opinion of it than he did before the purchase.

In Lee’s study, college students deciding between music albums also experienced this “postdecisional dissonance,” needing to further justify their choices after the fact. But when he asked them to wash their hands immediately after choosing between two CDs, the effect disappeared. They felt the same about the CD they picked before and after making their decisions.

In a separate experiment, students selecting from different flavors of jam rated how good they expected their choice to taste. Those who did not wash their hands had much higher expectations for their jam than those who did.

“Hand washing could be a good thing because it allows you to make a more rational decision,” said Lee. “It wipes away the past feelings of making a choice between two equally attractive options.”