Washing One’s Hands After Failure Enhances Optimism but Hampers Future Performance

Introduction

According to the view of embodied cognition, higher mental processes are linked to perceptual and motor processes. Hence, the activity of the mind is deeply rooted in the body’s interaction with the world (Wilson, 2002). Williams, Huang, and Bargh (2009) stated that physical cleanliness is a fundamental goal that developed from human concerns with the natural environment. The desired goal is to avoid physical contamination. However, in the last decade some studies revealed that physical cleansing not only removes dirt from the body but also weakens one’s guilt after immoral behavior (Zhong & Liljenquist, 2006) and makes moral judgment of others’ misdeeds less severe, even if only the cognitive concept of physical cleanliness is activated (Schnall, Benton, & Harvey, 2008). Moreover, Schnall and colleagues induced incidental disgust through exposure to disgusting features unrelated to a judgment task. They found that disgust resulted in harsher moral judgments unless participants washed their hands, which reduced disgust and its impact on moral judgments. In contrast, moral judgments become more severe when paralleled by a feeling of disgust (Wheatley & Haidt, 2005): participants were given a posthypnotic suggestion to feel disgust whenever confronted with a specific word. Vignettes describing moral transgressions were judged less severe when including the disgust-inducing word. Furthermore, after hand washing, social issues such as smoking or pornography are rated as more morally wrong (Zhong, Strejcek, & Sivanathan, 2010). Hence, a clean self seems to justify harsher moral judgment.

These results support the idea of embodied cognition existing also in the field of physical cleansing. Obviously, there is a direct link between physical washing and transgressions in the moral domain. Moreover, this relationship does not seem to be unspecific. The positive impact of washing on moral purity is also linked to specific motor modalities involved in a transgression (Lee & Schwarz, 2010b): after speaking an unethical voice mail, the desire for mouthwash was high, but low for hand sanitizer. In contrast, hand sanitizer was rated more positively after lying in an e-mail than after lying in a voice mail.

Moral purity and physical cleanliness also seem to coincide on the neuronal level. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging study, Moll and colleagues (2005) provided evidence that people react similarly to violations in both these domains. They found that pure disgust which is disgust without moral connotations as well as indignation recruit remarkably overlapping brain regions, especially the medial and lateral orbito frontal cortex, the left inferior frontal gyrus, and the medial superior frontal gyrus.

Also, the positive influence of physical cleansing is not limited to the moral domain. In a recent study, Xu, Zwick, and Schwarz (2011) investigated empirically the belief that good or bad luck can be washed off. In two studies, participants who either experienced or were asked to recall an episode of bad luck were more prepared to take risks if they had washed their hands before. In contrast, the willingness to take risks after hand washing as opposed to not washing was reduced when participants recalled or experienced an episode of good luck. The authors conclude that the psychological effect of physical cleansing is independent of people's motivation because washing not only removes undesirable traces of the past (e.g., bad luck) but also removes the desirable ones (e.g., good luck).

Finally, physical cleansing can also reduce post-decisional dissonance effects induced by a forced choice between two similarly attractive options which commonly evokes cognitive dissonance (Lee & Schwarz, 2010a). The authors conclude that washing not only cleanses us from traces of past immoral behavior, but it also cleanses us from traces of past decisions by reducing the need to justify them. Lee and Schwarz consequently emphasize the necessity to further scrutinize the psychological impact of physical cleansing and to test whether the observed “clean state” effect is limited to past acts threatening one’s self-view such as moral transgression and potentially poor choices. Moreover, processes that may mediate the psychological impact of physical cleansing should be considered.

The present study picks up this suggestion and extends the focus of the previous studies in this field beyond psychological effects which are metaphorically related to the concept of cleanliness. This study tested, on one hand, whether physical cleansing after failure enhances optimism regarding future performance in the same task domain and, on the other hand, whether washing actually affects future performance. In this context, two competing hypotheses were contrasted:

First, literature consistently suggests that optimism leads to better performance and higher success (e.g. Gordon, 2008; Green, Medlin & Whitten, 2004; Peterson, 2000). Furthermore, stereotype threat research shows that people who expect to fail on a task are actually more likely to fail than otherwise (e.g. Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 2002). Finally, Brunstein and Gollwitzer (1996) showed that failure in a task relevant to people’s self-definition (a) enhances subsequent performance in a task also related to self-defining goals but (b) impairs performance when the second task was unrelated to the first one. Accordingly, higher optimism after failure may mediate the effect of physical cleansing on future performance in a positive manner.

Second, washing one’s hands after a bad performance may weaken future performance in similar tasks, as washing off the disappointing failure could additionally wash off the need to make an extra effort in order to rehabilitate. In contrast, those who fail but do not wash their hands afterward may work harder to restore their perception of competence. In other words, washing after failure can help one feel better and close a matter. This interpretation would be consistent with the logic of clean slate effects (c.f., Lee & Schwarz, 2011) and would parallel the findings of Xu et al. (2011) that washing can eliminate the traces of previous good or bad luck and their impact on risky behavior.

Method

In the present study, 98 subjects (28 male and 70 female) with an average age of 22.48 years (SD = 1.96) were confronted with a test measuring cognitive flexibility that involves anagram word puzzles, each composed of five to seven letters. Participants were asked to solve as many anagrams as possible within 5 min by rearranging letter strings into substantives (e.g., “CCTIAT” = “TACTIC”). Anagrams were constructed following previous studies measuring cognitive flexibility (Beversdorf, Hughes, Steinberg, Lewis, & Heilman, 1999; Walker, Liston, Hobson, & Stickgold, 2002) and have been widely used as indicators of performance in problem-solving situations (e.g., Carver, Peterson, Follansbee, & Scheier, 1983; Rosenwald, 1961; Raps, Peterson, Jonas, & Seligman, 1982). Participants were assigned randomly to one of three conditions. In their meta-analysis of 165 studies reporting data on gender differences in verbal ability, Hyde and Linn (1988) conclude that the effects are so small that differences in verbal ability no longer exist. Nevertheless, the assignment of participants to the three conditions in this study was done separately for men and women in order to exclude potential gender biases.

In the two experimental conditions (hand washing vs. nonwashing), participants were confronted with a first anagram test. However, only 6 out of 25 anagrams were actually solvable, hence failure was inevitable. To additionally strengthen the feeling of failure, participants were subsequently confronted with a table showing that 90% of a fictitious norm sample achieved a higher score in this test. Afterward, participants were told that they would have to perform a second anagram test 5 min later. In the meantime, they were introduced to a later study on haptic sensation. Participants in the hand washing condition (n = 32; 10 male) were asked to wash their hands on this occasion for hygienic reasons, while participants in the other experimental condition (n = 33; 9 male) were not asked to do so. The second anagram test consisted of 25 solvable anagrams. Before this test started, participants were asked to rate on a scale (−5 to +5) how optimistic they felt about achieving a worse, the same, or a better score, respectively, compared to the first test. This single item was selected according to previous studies (e.g., Hoffart & Sexton, 2002), and it referred to the preceding performance in order to allow a relative optimism analysis (c.f., Weinstein, 1987; Dickow & Møller, 2002; Ropp, Miles, & Wardle, 2004). In a third group serving as control condition, participants (n = 33; 9 male) only had to perform the second anagram test without the failure manipulation beforehand. Consequently, this group was intended to provide a baseline performance for the second anagram test.

Results

Before applying parametrical tests, Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests were calculated to check for normal distribution of data. Homogeneity of variances was tested by means of Levene’s test. For regression analysis, Cook’s distance was additionally computed to uncover potential outliers. As far as these requirements were not fulfilled, a nonparametric test was chosen. Effect sizes as indicators for practical significance are reported for statistically significant effects by partial eta square (η_p²) in the case of an analysis of variance, and by Cohen’s d in the case of a t test (c.f., Cohen, 1988).

Participants in the hand washing condition solved as many anagrams (M = 2.727; SD = 1.039) as those subjects who did not wash their hands after the first test (M = 2.688; SD = 1.424; Mann-Whitney-U = 512; Z = -218; p = .828). However, before the second anagram test started, participants who washed their hands had been more optimistic about achieving a better score in the second run, t(63) = 2.384; p = .020; d = .593 (Figure 1, left). Thus, washing one’s hands enhanced optimism after failure as expected. Thereby, both groups expected to show a better performance in the second test than in the first run because the mean optimism ratings differed significantly from 0 (representing the same performance) in the nonwashing group, t(31) = 2.335; p = .026; d = .413, as well as in the hand washing group, t(32) = 5.106; p < .001; d = .889.

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Figure 1.

Optimism rating after failure in a test with subsequent hand washing or no hand washing (left side), as well as the actual performance (number of solved anagrams) in the subsequent test compared to a control group without failure manipulation beforehand (right side). Error bars represent standard error of the mean.

Did higher optimism after hand washing also led to a better performance? No, the opposite was true as revealed by a one-way analysis of variance, F(2, 95) = 5.954; p = .004; η_p² = .111 (Figure 1, right). Participants who did not wash their hands after failure performed better than those who washed their hands (Tukey’s test p = .012) and also better than the control group (p = .008). Participants of the hand washing condition showed a performance on the baseline level as represented by the control group (p = .988).

Consequently, physical washing after failure evoked higher optimism. In the end, however, this did not lead to a better performance. Instead, washing one’s hands lowered future performance in the same performance domain: In the second test, the mean performance in the hand washing group was identical with the performance shown by the baseline group. This result pattern supports the hypothesis that physical cleansing enhances optimism and hence lowers the participants’ need to work harder in order to restore their perception of competence.

In order to scrutinize the relation between the first and the second test performances and the link between performance and optimism rating, performances in both anagram tests were correlated separately for the hand washing group and the nonwashing group, respectively. Also, the performances of the first and the second anagram test were correlated separately with the optimism ratings. Participants who did not wash their hands after failure showed a significant positive correlation between the number of anagrams solved in the first and second test run (r = .475; p = .006). In contrast, the test performances correlated less closely and not significantly in the hand washing group (r = .213; p = .233). Moreover, in both groups the performances in both test sessions did not correlate with optimism (all rs ≤ .279; all ps ≥.122). This result indicates that the optimism rating (1) was independent of the performance in the first test and, in turn, (2) did not affect the subsequent test performance. Moreover, the physical cleansing (as opposed to no cleansing) affected useful traces of the past, as the test performances were not significantly correlated. Therefore, participants did not benefit from a relatively better performance in the first test.

Discussion

The present findings show that the psychological influence of physical cleansing is neither limited to the moral domain nor to decision making processes nor to people’s good or bad luck in the past. Washing also has a significant impact on our optimism after failure as well as on future performance in the same task domain. Hence, the influence of physical cleansing is not limited to domains being metaphorically linked to the concept of cleanliness. Moreover, it is striking that clean-slate effects are robust across countries and languages, which differ to some extent in their metaphors. None of the participants in the present study were native speakers of English in contrast to for example Schnall, Benton, and Harvey (2008) or Xu et al. (2011).

The present results show that physical cleansing enhances optimism but, unfortunately, also hampers subsequent performance. Both failure groups expected a significantly better performance in the second test than in the first disappointing run, although optimism was significantly higher after hand washing. Hence, both groups were optimistic. The selected item assessing optimism referred to the preceding performance in order to allow this relative optimism analysis. In the next step, future studies should assess an absolute optimism rating instead, so that a comparison with the no failure control group is possible. Moreover, it would be interesting to assess global optimism in a specific performance domain before a failure manipulation and a second measurement afterward to clarify whether hand washing boosts optimism or if it merely prevents a decrease.

It is important to note that optimism does not come into question as the mediating variable between hand washing and subsequent performance because no correlation was observable. Therefore, the question arises what kind of mechanism could be causal for the reduced performance in the second test. Perhaps washing off the disappointing failure also washes off the need to make an extra effort in order to restore one’s own perception of competence. This could be explained by assuming that the energizing effect commonly associated with failure (e.g., Brehm, 1999) is gone when washing closes the matter. According to Brehm, the “intensity of energization in preparation for goal attainment should be a nonmonotonic function of the difficulty of required instrumental behavior.” (p. 3). Energization should increase with increasing difficulty, but if the required effort is greater than the worth of the goal, energization should drop back to the baseline level. If the goal is not worth the effort, no energy should be mobilized. In the present case, washing after a bad performance in an obviously difficult task could have reduced the worth of success in the second run, hence energy was reduced in the hand washing group in contrast to the nonwashing group. Thereby, the lower energization was paralleled by higher optimism on average. Future studies should implement an appropriate measurement of energizing to assess the will to achieve a good performance and its interplay with optimism. In the present study, additional measurements before the second test run were excluded since it was not assessable from the outset how strong the effect of the treatment (i.e., hand washing) would be. The results show that the effect of hand washing is moderate on optimism and large on performance (decrease of 30%). Therefore, future studies could probably implement additional measurements after washing but prior to the subsequent critical action.

Since optimism did not show any correlation with the subsequent (as well as preceding) performance, it is not a candidate to mediate the effect of physical cleansing itself. However, it could have an effect by means of a suppressor variable in multiple regression models when analyzing the common influence of optimism and energization on future performance. Perhaps optimism suppresses residual variance of energization.

However, a second explanation beyond a motivational mechanism could be responsible for the negative impact of washing on subsequent performance: perhaps washing hampered the transfer of specific problem-solving strategies (e.g., time management, lexical search) learned in the first anagram test to the second run. This possibility is indicated by the nonexisting correlation between both test performances in the hand washing failure group in contrast to the highly significant positive correlation in the nonwashing failure group. Both explanations are worth being scrutinized by the follow-up studies. Aspects which should therefore be investigated further are (a) the potential difference in optimism between a hand washing group which experienced failure and a control group without failure experience, (b) the concept of energization as a potential mediating mechanism between physical cleansing and future performance, (c) the impact of washing on the transfer of learned strategies to subsequent tasks as well as on the consolidation of memory content.

To sum up the present findings, washing one’s hands is indeed an adequate ritual to close a matter, at least if someone does not intend to continue with a task at a later time. The findings are consistent with the logic of clean-slate effects (Lee & Schwarz, 2010a) and further highlight that washing does not exclusively remove moral residues, in contrast to what the early emphasis on metaphors of moral purity and contamination suggested (Schnall et al., 2008; Zhong et al., 2006).

With respect to applied implications in performance settings, attention should be paid if physical cleansing is intended in the meantime. Further research should investigate whether physical cleansing can also enhance future performance under certain circumstances. Perhaps this is the case when washing induces physical refreshment which is more influential than the psychological effect of washing, for example in sport contexts.

Most importantly, the impact of physical cleansing on higher cognitive processes does not seem to be always positive as suggested by previous studies, but it appears to be specific with respect to particular cognitive processes.