Mosaic Boston

Have you heard of "The Lady Macbeth Effect"? It's named after the Shakespearean queen who manipulates her husband into killing the king, and then is racked by shame and guilt. She start frenetically washing away blood on her hands that only she can see. She deludes herself that "a little water will clear us of this deed." But for all of her repeated washing, she cannot cleanse herself of the ever-consuming guilt. By Act V, the stubborn blood stains have driven the illegitimate queen to madness and suicide. Psychologists have coined the real connection between morality and cleanliness "The Lady Macbeth Effect." Not too long ago, two researchers published a paper in the Journal of Science arguing that the connection is more than metaphorical. In one set of tests, the researchers asked participants to recall an ethical or unethical act, and then asked them to fill in the missing letters in a series of incomplete words, like W_ _H and SH_ _ER. Those subjects who had recalled unethical acts mostly returned WASH a