Does the following article now explain in a great deal what could have been the origin of the baptism?
Danny
From New Scientist:
Physical washing may help clean your conscience
It appears that an element of Lady Macbeth may reside in most of us. The metaphorical desire to wash away one?s sins is not just wishful thinking but evidence of an innate psychological association between moral and physical cleanliness, according to a new study.
Shakespeare?s notorious murderess ? who famously shouts ?Out damn spot!? as she tries to scrub away imagined bloodstains ? may represent an extreme case. Nevertheless, researchers found that study participants who focused on unethical behaviours such as lying, stealing, or betraying friends were more likely to follow up with activities that indicated they felt physically dirty.
Those who were given an opportunity to wash their hands after recalling incidents of immoral behaviour showed signs of a clearer conscious than those who had not washed.
?After we feel morally threatened, we have this deep psychological urge to cleanse ourselves,? says Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto, Canada, who led the study.
Shower time
Zhong and colleagues, who dubbed this urge to cleanse ?the Macbeth effect?, came up with the experiment after noticing similar behaviour in contemporary popular culture.
In nearly every movie involving homicide the actor or actress will jump into the shower to try to wash off, whether they have blood on their hands or not, Zhong says. ?It made me wonder if it wasn?t physical cleanliness they were after but a psychological link between physical and moral cleanliness.?
To test his hypothesis, the team asked volunteers to focus on ethical or unethical deeds from their past before participating in various exercises. Those who focused on immoral actions were more likely to select activities or products that involved cleaning, such as selecting an antiseptic wipe over a pencil as a freebie for taking part in the study.
Slimy and rotten
In the final experiment, participants were asked to focus on an example of unethical behaviour from their past and were then given the option to wash their hands. Participants were then asked whether they would volunteer without pay to help a desperate graduate student out of a tight spot.
Seventy-four percent of those who had not washed their hands offered to help, while only 41% of those who had washed volunteered.
This final experiment establishes a link between moral and physical cleanliness, says Philip Tetlock, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, US, who was not involved in the study.
?When you have been associated with something immoral, there are two ways you can cleanse yourself ? engaging in moral behaviour or physically cleaning yourself,? Tetlock says. ?We talk about things being dirty, slimy, or rotten. A lot of people would say those are just metaphors, but this study shows that there is a connection on a visceral level.?