Purity and Defilement: Part 7, Metaphors and the Macbeth Effect

"Out, damned spot! Out, I say!"

--Lady Macbeth

In the last few posts we've been reviewing the psychology of disgust and its links with moral and social reasoning. In the next few posts we'll dig more deeply into the connection between disgust and morality.

To begin, there is a growing consensus that the link between disgust and morality is mediated by metaphor. Much of this work takes its cue from the work of the cognitive scientists and linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980, 1999) who have greatly illuminated the metaphorical nature of human cognition. Specifically, Lakoff and Johnson have demonstrated how humans grasp abstractions by grounding them in more concrete metaphors. These metaphors are not the poetic or airy metaphors of literature. Rather, these metaphors are largely structured by the human sensorimotor system. Thus, cognition is embodied, reflecting how we understand the world largely through our physical and sensory experiences with our bodies. For example, why is "up" generally good and "down" generally bad? The mapping of up/good and down/bad isn't arbitrary. The experience of our bodies biases us toward this mapping. Specifically, the experience of illness, fatigue, sleep and death are associated with the body laying down. Conversely, the experience of life, vigor, wakefulness and health is associated with standing up. These sensorimotor experiences help bias the mind toward the metaphor Up = Good and Down = Bad. Of course, any given culture might reverse the metaphor. Hell might be Up and Heaven might be Down in the bowels of the earth. But, all things being equal, it's not surprising given the experience of our bodies that we map the up/down orientation the way we do. For example, we see the metaphor used in health (e.g., He’s down with the flu), power (e.g., You want to move up in this company), mood (e.g., I’m feeling up today), and morality (e.g., He’s a low-down person).

The take home point in all this is that we tend to make abstractions concrete via a metaphorical mapping. Something physical and tangible (e.g., standing or falling) helps us understand and reason through abstract and fuzzy concepts. For example, how are we to understand the Christian notions of sin and grace? These are large, amorphous and abstract concepts. Thus, we see the Old and New Testament writers ground these abstractions with more concrete metaphors. The following is a list I made of the Sin/Grace metaphors used in the biblical witness:

Metaphor : Sin : Grace
Purity : Contaminated/Dirty : Pure/Clean
Rescue : Perishing : Saved
Economic : Debt : Payment
Legal : Crime and punishment : Forgiveness
Freedom : Slavery : Emancipation
Optics : Dark : Light
Navigation : Lost : Found
Nation : Alien : Citizen
Health : Illness : Healing
Knowledge : Ignorance : Understanding
Relational : Enemy : Friend
Familial : Orphan : Adoption
Horticultural : Pruned : Grafted in
Vision : Blindness : Sight
Development : Infancy : Maturity
Military : War : Peace
Biological : Death : Life
Ambulatory : Falling/Stumbling : Standing/Walking
Truth : Error/False : Correct/True
Performance : Failure/Mistake : Success

As can be seen in this list the experience of grace is very rich, unable to be captured by a single concrete metaphor. Rather, each metaphor provides a single perspective by which sin/grace is understood.

Our focus, obviously, is the role of the purity/pollution and dirty/clean metaphors within Christianity. These are the metaphors that understand sin and grace via an appeal to disgust psychology. That is, the Pharisees in Matthew 9 framed the situation--Jesus eating with sinners--with a metaphor. And the metaphor they used to grasp the situation was purity/pollution. And as we saw in prior posts, when we reason about moral situations with disgust psychology the logic of contamination governs the outcome.

And this is worrisome because the purity/pollution and dirty/clean metaphors are ubiquitous and central metaphors in the bible, most rooted in the purity tradition of the Old Testament and the role of the Day of Atonement where the “uncleanness” of the Israelites was “cleaned” and “purified.” Metaphorically, sin is understood to be a contaminant and salvation is a process of “washing,” “purification,” “cleansing,” or “sanctification.” This is most clearly depicted in the Christian salvation ritual of baptism where sins are “washed away.” As the Christian hymns testify, Christians are “washed in the blood of the Lamb” and are made “white as snow.”

And the metaphorical link between morality and cleanliness isn't unique to Christianity. It appears in most religions. Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism all have washing rituals that symbolize moral cleansing. More, this doesn't seem to be simply a religious phenomenon. Even non-religious people connect washing with morality and sin.

Take, for example, the research of Chen-Bo Zhong on what he calls The Macbeth Effect. The Macbeth Effect is the natural impulse to link physical cleansing with moral cleansing. Thus, Lady Macbeth tries to deal with her guilt by trying to wash her hands. Once again, we see an example of "magical thinking" in this cognitive tendency to think that physical washing has a causal effect in moral purification. The link between physical and spiritual washing isn't simply symbolic (i.e., the physical washing symbolizes the spiritual transformation) but causal (i.e., the physical washing is a causal factor in the spiritual cleansing).

Do normal people reason about moral infractions like Lady Macbeth? Yes they do. In a series of studies Zhong and Liljenquist (2006) asked participants to imagine moral infractions they had committed. When compared to controls people who imagined their moral failures were more likely to recall cleansing-related words, prefer cleansing products (e.g., soap), and choose an antiseptic wipe over a pencil as a token gift. In short, being exposed to your moral failings stimulated a need for physical cleansing. When we sin we like to take showers. It appears, then, that the morality/cleansing link isn't a religious artifact. Rather, like the Up/Down metaphor, the morality/cleansing metaphor is rooted in our physical experiences with dirt and water. When we tell a child to wash their hands before dinner we are reinforcing a natural association between cleanliness, morality (being a "good girl") and hospitality (table fellowship). No wonder the Pharisees in Matthew 9 framed the situation as they did.

Now all this might simply be a psychological curiosity if not for a troubling tendency. Specifically, if a causal link is made (via magical thinking) between physical purity and moral purity then it is only a short step to think that physical cleansing can replace moral righteousness. That is, if the physical cleansing causes moral cleansing then, it stands to reason, moral purity can be achieved through physical washing.

This goes to the root of the problem in Matthew 9. When Jesus says, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" he is speaking to the assumption that ritual acts of purification can replace moral behavior.

Now you might think that normal people would be immune to the religious superstition that mere hand washing absolves you of moral responsibility. But you would be wrong. Specifically, in the same 2006 study Zhong and Liljenquist examined this replacement effect (physical cleansing replacing moral responsibility). In the study participants were again asked to recall a moral failure. Afterward, some participants were allowed to use an antiseptic wipe. After using the wipe (or not) the participants were asked to give mood ratings. Many of the mood ratings assessed moral emotions: Disgust, regret, shame, guilt. After the mood ratings the participants were asked to engage in an act of helpful volunteerism (participating for another study without pay to help out a desperate graduate student).

What did Zhong and Liljenquist find? They observed two things. First, if participants were allowed to use an antiseptic wipe they were less helpful. Where 74% of the control participants agreed to help out the graduate student only 41% of those who used a wipe agreed to assist. Second, when compared to controls those using the wipe reported fewer negative moral emotions (e.g., less shame, less guilt) after recalling their moral failure.

This finding is stunning, with huge implications for the Church. Specifically, the physical act of washing made people feel less guilty and reduced their willingness to engage in an altruistic act. Physical cleansing replaced morality, both emotionally and behaviorally. Physical washing makes me feel morally cleaner and, by implication, morally satisfied to the point of unhelpfulness. You already feel like a good person so why do more good?

All this should make us very, very wary about church attendance, worship and religious ritual. Like the antiseptic wipe it is possible that the cleansing rituals of Christian worship can have harmful effects upon Christian moral behavior. The spiritual act of cleansing comes to replace moral responsibility. In fact, we know this takes place. It happened in Matthew 9, it happened in Zhong's lab, and it happens every Sunday after church.