◎鄭寺音

Cleanliness is next to godliness, the ancient proverb says – and now scientists have proved that the state of your hands can affect your moral judgment.

古語有云，潔淨近乎神聖，現在科學家證明，你雙手的狀態，可以影響你在道德方面的判斷力。

A study by British academics has revealed that people who clean themselves before making such judgments are more likely to be lenient.

英國學者的研究披露，在做道德判斷前清潔自己的人，可能比較寬大。

Researchers said the findings mean jurors who wash their hands may make their verdict less severe – and people who shower before voting may be more likely to overlook political misdemeanours.

研究人員說，這項發現意味著，洗手的陪審員，判決可能比較不嚴厲；投票前淋浴者，可能比較會忽略政治上的小過錯。

In the study, 22 people who had washed their hands, and 22 who had not, were made to watch a disgusting scene from the film Trainspotting, about heroin addicts.

在這份研究中，22名洗手與22名沒洗手的人，觀看描述海洛因上癮者的電影「猜火車」片中令人作嘔的場景。

All 44 were then asked to rate how morally wrong a series of actions were on a scale of one to nine.

44人接著被要求針對一些行為的道德錯誤有多大，在一份1到9分的量表上評分。

All put the actions on the ‘wrong’ side of the scale. But the group who had washed their hands were less likely to judge the actions as harshly as the group who had not.

所有人都把這些行為評在量表上「錯誤」那頭，但洗手的組別，評斷這些行為，不像沒洗手的組別嚴厲。

新聞辭典

lenient：形容詞，寬大的，仁慈的。例句： They believe that judges are too lenient with terrorist suspects.（他們認為法官對恐怖疑犯太過仁慈。）

addict：名詞，上癮的人。動詞，耽溺，沉迷，上癮。例句： I’m addicted to chocolate.（我超愛吃巧克力。）

harsh：形容詞，嚴厲的，刺耳的，艱苦的。

自由時報-971218

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