Disgusting thoughts can make you wash more often

Psychologists at the Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology of the University School of Social Sciences: Dr. Michael Parzuchowski, M. Konrad Bocian and Dr. Wiesław Baryła, demonstrated that thinking about immoral behaviour of others affects our behaviour in an unusual way.

"When we think about a person whose behaviour is immoral, for example, a paedophile, a thief or crook, we get exactly the same effect as when we feel disgust. Thus, mere imagining a person behaving immorally can induce mental and physical need of purification" - reads the release sent to PAP.

A study of a group of 200 people showed that under the influence of imagining a paedophile subjects experienced increased desire to have cleaning products of a need for physical cleansing, such as washing hands or bathing.

"Even just thinking about behaviour of a paedophile fills us with disgust, as a result of which we are looking for ways to regain moral balance, such as beauty treatments and care for the cleanliness of body" - summarised Dr. Michał Parzuchowski.

How did the scientists come to that conclusion? They compared the behaviour of two groups of people, whose task was to imagine a stereotype of a person not associated with disgust - an altruistic, and a person causing disgust - a paedophile. "Compared to the first group, we recorded a significant increase in the number of people who went to the toilet a moment after such manipulation. In the control group, only 9 percent subjects went to the toilet, but under the influence of thoughts about a paedophile, this figure rose to 23 percent" - described psychologist from Sopot, Konrad Bocian.

The project was funded by a grant from the National Science Centre. The study results have been published in the scientific journal Psychologia Społeczna.

Source: PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland