Lee Spike W S, Millet Kobe, Grinstein Amir, Pauwels Koen H, Johnston Phillip R, Volkov Alexandra E, van der Wal Arianne J
University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Soc Psychol Personal Sci. 2023 May;14(4):381-394. doi: 10.1177/19485506221099428. Epub 2022 Jul 9.
The human mind harbors various mechanisms for coping with stress, but what role does physical behavior play? Inspired by ethological observations of autogrooming activity across species, we offer a general hypothesis: cleaning attenuates effects of stressful events. Preregistered behavioral and psychophysiological experiments ( = 3,066 in United Kingdom, United States, and Canada) found that (a) concrete visual simulation of cleaning behavior alleviated residual anxiety from a stress-inducing physical scene, an effect distinct from touch, and (b) actual cleaning behavior enhanced adaptive cardiovascular reactivity to a highly stressful context of social performance/evaluation, which provides the first physiological evidence for the attenuation of stress-related effects by cleaning. Overall, actual cleaning and simulated cleaning attenuate effects of physical or psychological stressors, even when they have nothing to do with contamination or disease and would not be resolved by cleaning. Daily cleaning behavior may facilitate coping with stressors like physical risks and psychological threats to the self.
人类的思维拥有各种应对压力的机制，但身体行为在其中扮演着什么角色呢？受跨物种自我梳理行为的行为学观察启发，我们提出一个普遍假设：清洁能减轻压力事件的影响。预先注册的行为和心理生理学实验（英国、美国和加拿大的样本量(n = 3066)）发现：（a）清洁行为的具体视觉模拟减轻了压力诱导身体场景带来的残余焦虑，这种效果不同于触摸；（b）实际的清洁行为增强了对高度紧张的社交表现/评估情境的适应性心血管反应，这为清洁减轻压力相关影响提供了首个生理学证据。总体而言，实际清洁和模拟清洁都能减轻身体或心理压力源的影响，即使这些压力源与污染或疾病无关，且无法通过清洁解决。日常清洁行为可能有助于应对诸如身体风险和对自我的心理威胁等压力源。
