Guilt is catching

Shaking hands with a cheat or thief, or merely sitting in a chair they used, is likely to make you experience feelings of guilt. That's according to a new study, the first to demonstrate "moral transfer" between people. Kendall Eskine and his colleagues invited 54 university students one at a time into a room for testing and told half of them that the chair they were sitting in had recently been used by a student who'd been caught stealing from the department. All participants then completed a personality test about how they were feeling "right now". This included items relating to anger, sadness and guilt. Example guilt items included "I feel bad about something" and "I feel like apologising".  The key finding was that students sitting in a chair previously used by a cheat scored higher on feelings of guilt, but just the same on other emotions. This "suggests moral transfer" said the researchers. A second study with 48 more participants was similar but this time the students shook hands with another person who they were told afterwards had cheated in his exams. This led them to experience increased guilt of their own, especially if they scored highly on a measure of disgust sensitivity. The moral transfer was reduced if they were wearing a glove, which some of them were as part of a supposed consumer test. These new findings build on past research that showed people preferred to avoid coming into contact with clothing or objects used by a murderer, even though ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs