Main Point:
Researchers have found that washing your hand after a failure can help you in dealing with the failure.
Published in:
Social Psychological and Personality Science
Study Further:
Previously, researchers found that “washing one’s hand not only removes dirt from the body, it also weakens one’s guilt after immoral behavior, makes moral judgment of others’ misdeeds less severe, reduces post-decisional dissonance effects, and can help wash off bad luck.”
Researchers, in the present study, have found that washing our hands can affect our thinking, judgment and decision in a positive manner. However, researchers reported that washing of the hands also hamper future performance in the same task domain.
“The results show that physical cleansing enhances optimism after failure, but it hampers future performance in the same task domain,” Researchers wrote.
This research shows that physical cleansing can help you in moving to a better position to deal with failure.
Reference:
K. Kaspar (2013). Washing One’s Hands After Failure Enhances Optimism but Hampers Future Performance Social Psychological and Personality Science DOI: 10.1177/1948550612443267