Abstract: Physical cleansing has been a focal element in religious ceremonies for thousands of years. The prevalence of this practice suggests a psychological association between bodily purity and moral purity. Based on the association between physical and moral purity, Zhong and Liljenquist (2006) hypothesized that the feeling of having sinned might be washed away by physical cleansing. Zhong and Liljenquist (2006) suggested that a threat to one’s moral purity induces the need to cleanse oneself. This effect revealed itself through an increased mental accessibility of cleansing related concepts, a greater desire for cleansing products, and a greater likelihood of taking antiseptic wipes. Furthermore, some research results indicated that physical cleansing alleviates the upsetting consequences of unethical behavior and reduces threats to one’s moral self-image. Lee and Schwarz(2010) discovered that hand washing can reduce the classic post-decisional dissonance effect in a choice situation. In the time dimension, some studies have found that for the past bad things, people tend to think it as happened earlier than actually occurred. Hand washing removes more than dirt, may also reflect that washing more generally removes traces formerly by metaphorically wiping the slate clean. If so, washing one’s hands may lessen the influence of previous unpleasant behaviors or events that have no moral implications at all. So we put forward a hypothesis that if one event is the unpleasant formerly, persons all tend to wash it off, no matter whether it is relevant to moral. Hence, the current study hypothesized that individuals may also have the desire for “cleansing” after experiencing negatively valenced events unrelated to morality, and reversely have the desire for “conservation” (It referred to mental accessibility of conservation-related concepts, for example, a greater desire for products with the function of conservation) after positively valenced events. The three experiments were designed to test this hypothesis: To replicate the study of Zhong and Lilijenquist (2006) in the Chinese cultural context, irreligious participants with Chinese cultural backgrounds completed the gift choice task (Study 1a) and products evaluation task (Study 1b) after recalling a personal ethical or unethical story. In Study 2, we investigated whether participants would have a desire for physical cleansing and express a preference for cleaning products after recalling a negatively valenced event unrelated to morality. Finally, in Study 3 we further tested whether participants would have a desire for keeping and express a preference for products with the function of conservation (e. g., camera) after recalling a pleasant event in the past. The results showed that individuals had a desire for cleansing after experiencing not only immoral negatively valenced events and mood, but also other negatively valenced events and mood; reversely, participants had a desire for keeping pleasant memories after experiencing positively valenced events and mood. Based on these results, we propose the “emotional attunement principle,” which holds that humans can keep their internal harmony through an attempt to remove memories of the unpleasant past and keep pleasant memories. Hence, we propose a preliminary hypothesis that humans use the “emotional attunement principle” to cope with different emotional valenced events.

Key words: morality, emotion, cleansing, positively valenced events, negatively valenced events

摘要： 基于道德与清洗的联系，我们假设，人们可能在经历非道德范畴的负效价事件后也会引发出“清洗”的倾向，而在经历正效价事件后则会引发“保留”的倾向。三个实验来验证这个假设，结果表明，被试在回忆道德或非道德范畴的负效价事件时，都会更多地选择具有清洗功能的物品，表现出“清除”负效价事件的倾向；相反，被试回忆正效价事件时，则会倾向选择具有保留功能的物品，表现出将正效价事件“保留”的倾向。

关键词: 道德, 情绪, 清洗, 负效价事件, 正效价事件