14 DAY TRIAL // Dr. Kai Kaspar with the University of Cologne maintains that, as weird as this may sound, the simple act of washing one's hands influences a person's mood. Specifically, it promotes optimism and self-confidence, and it makes people feel happier.
The researcher found that washing hands affects mood and take on life after carrying out an experiment involving 98 volunteers.
According to Daily Mail, these people were split into two groups and asked to perform a task that, unknown to them, was impossible to complete.
After these people all failed to perform the task, as was expected of them, Dr. Kai Kaspar asked individuals in one of the groups to wash their hands.
Later on, he assessed the mood and self-confidence levels of all the volunteers who took part in the experiment and found that those who had washed their hands after trying to complete the task were not as affected by their failure as the ones who did not wash their hands were.
Interestingly enough, they were also less motivated to try to perform better on another occasion.
“While physical cleansing after failure may eliminate negative feelings, it reduces the motivation to try harder in a new test situation,” the researcher believes.
A detailed account of Dr. Kai Kaspar's investigation and its findings has been published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.