The Lady Macbeth effect: what it is and how it expresses the feeling of guilt

Since ancient times, water has been seen as a pure element, capable of cleaning not only the body but also the conscience and even the soul. That is why it is often used symbolically in different acts and ceremonies of contrition or to free oneself from the mistakes of the past.

However, it is not something reserved for the spiritual or religious field, but something frequent in our day to day: This is the Lady Macbeth effect., about which we are going to talk throughout this article.

• Related article: "Cognitive dissonance: the theory that explains self-deception"

What is the Lady Macbeth effect?

The Lady Macbeth effect is known as the tendency or need to cleanse, wash hands or shower after having committed an act that goes against our beliefs and feelings, before the sensation of liking and internal discomfort that the contradiction between our belief and our action supposes us.

It is a response to the cognitive dissonance that is present in the majority of the population, without we are facing something pathological, and that obeys the need to act to alleviate the discomfort due to the incoherence. In other words: it seeks to clear our conscience of having done something that oneself considers bad or inappropriate and for which one feels guilty. And this washing is literal, since physical cleanliness is associated or linked to mental or moral cleanliness: the water will cleanse our guilt and discomfort just as it does with real dirt.

Dissonant actions, words and thoughts can be of a very different nature or severity. In some cases they can be really severe, but it doesn't necessarily have to be something traumatic or serious, but it can come (and in fact it is the most frequent) from small lies, fights, thefts or even infidelities

This effect occurs in acts that we carry out directly, but also in imagined acts, dreams or thoughts.. It has also been observed even in video games, with players using tricks or cheating.

In general, we can include any act that seems relevant to us and for which we feel guilty, since it contradicts deep-rooted values ​​and beliefs that are important to the person in question. It is even possible that it occurs in cases in which the subject himself has not done anything or has not been able to do anything but arouse guilt, such as a fight between loved ones or the visualization of some type of vexation.

Interestingly, the fact of washing hands seems to have a positive effect in reducing feelings of guilt: in an experiment carried out by doctors Zhong and Liljenquist, in which after making them write on a computer an unethical act, half of the participants were offered to clean themselves with the excuse that the keyboard was not clean. They were all subsequently asked to participate in a second unpaid experiment to help a struggling researcher. Those who washed showed around 50% less interest in participating than those who did not. they did, the study indicating that they had less need to repair or diminish their sense of blame.

Why does this effect occur?

The reasons why this trend exists are not fully known, although there is a clear link with conditioning and cultural learning.

On the one hand, we learn that water is capable of removing and cleaning physical dirt. This learning, along with the fact that cleaning promotes well-being and eliminates waste and pathogens, is generalized to other areas such as morality.

Also, as we have seen previously, throughout history water has been associated with purification in many cultures and religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism among others.

• You may be interested in: "What is guilt and how can we manage this feeling?"

The origin of its name

"A little water will wash away the crime." This phrase, quite representative of the effect that is being explained in this article, is part of the story of macbeth, by william shakespeare, a work that is the origin of the name of the effect at hand.

Throughout the work "Macbeth and Lady Macbeth" we see how Macbeth, a nobleman who achieves recognition in a battle against the Norse, he succumbs to greed and lust for power after being made a baron by the king Duncan.

Together with Lady Macbeth, his wife, she decides to plan and cause the death of the monarch in order to to obtain the crown (since both his appointment as baron and his ascension to king were predicted by some witches). Committed the regicide, Macbeth exclaims "Will the whole ocean be able to wash the blood from my hands, or will my hands dye the green sea in an immense scarlet stain?"

It is after that moment that Lady Macbeth utters her opening sentence, proposing that a little water will wash away the guilt of the murder. Despite this, throughout history women begin to have hallucinations in which he sees the blood of the dead man on his hands due to guilt, and finally ends up committing suicide.

Link with some pathologies

Although, as we have said, the Macbeth effect It occurs in a generalized way in the population without its presence implying anything pathological, the truth is that this effect is also manifested (and also in an exaggerated way) in some types of pathologies.

We see the clearest example in obsessive disorders and specifically in the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which is characterized by the repeated appearance of intrusive thoughts, recurring and considered unacceptable by those who suffer from them, causing the appearance of an anxiety that the subject usually tries to avoid through different rituals called compulsions (despite the fact that such avoidance ultimately feeds the perpetuation of the anxiety).

obsessions and/or compulsions (Ritual actions are not always carried out, and obsession can exist without compulsion as in obsessive neurosis) They occupy a large part of the time and often limit the life of the person who suffers from it. It is common for people with OCD to be hyper-responsible and have strong feelings of guilt regarding the content of their obsessive thoughts or failure to comply with their rituals (in many cases the subject believes that the compulsion prevents what he has imagined from happening, since it is not uncommon for the belief that thinking something is equivalent to doing it).

Within the disorder itself there are multiple variants regarding obsessions and compulsions, but among the latter one of the frequent ones is precisely that of washing repeatedly. Although in some cases the compulsion is linked to a panic at the idea of ​​infecting or causing diseases to close environment, in many others washing is a response to a feeling of guilt and an attempt to "wash it".

It is linked to the obsession with contamination and mental pollution., the latter being the feeling of being internally dirty or impure without there being any external element or event that generates it. Said pollution is an effect of the anxiety and discomfort generated by the thought, together with a strong guilt when the obsessions go against the person's beliefs. For this reason, we can consider that in these cases we would be seeing a pathological Macbeth effect.

In addition to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, the Macbeth effect will also be seen more frequently in all those disorders that are associated with feelings of guilt (even if this has no reason to be present. People with post-traumatic stress disorder or survivor syndrome may also be examples of populations in which it can occur more frequently.

Bibliographic references:

• Fairbrother, N., Newth, S., & Rachman, S. (2005). Mental pollution: Feelings of dirtiness without physical contact. Behavior Research and Therapy, 43, 121–130.
• Khan, M. and Grisham, J. R. (2018). Wiping your conscience clean: Investigating the Macbeth effect in individuals with high obsessive-compulsive contamination concerns. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 1-10.
• Shakespeare, W. (2010). Macbeth. Boston, MA: English Play Press. (Original work published 1699).
• Zhong, C. b. and Liljenquist, K. (2006). Washing Away Your Sins: Threatened Morality and Physical Cleansing. Science, 313 (5792): 1451–1452.