the macbeth effect

Live Schereiber, who played Macbeth to critical acclaim this summer at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, said the moral weight of the murder in the play was exhausting. And he said that cast members lined up to shower at the theater, rather than waiting until they got home.

“That was unusual – usually no one uses those theater showers,” Mr. Schreiber said.

From « Lady Macbeth Not Alone in Her Quest for Spotlessness » in this morning’s New York Times, an article that reports on a Northwestern study that found students asked to contemplate an unethical act (one of their own) were twice as likely to accept the gift of an antiseptic wipe over a pencil at the conclusion of the study.

The article also states:

In another experiment, the researchers found that students who had been contemplating an unethical deed rated the value of cleaning products significantly higher than peers who had been thinking about an ethical act.

(…)

People who washed their hands after contemplating an unethical act were less troubled by their thoughts than those who didn’t, the study found.