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Seems like most of them are small sample sizes. I'd like to see some repeatable results, too.
Indeed, it is a small sample size.
However, I think it’s possible that these results are true. If you understand relational frame theory, then you can see how the act of washing hands can activate some schemas or deactivate others.
Seen through this lens, the results of these experiments are not special, but are simply implications of an already established theory of cognition.
I respectfully disagree. The Germ Theory of Disease did not fully take root until the late 1800s, less than 200 years ago.
A fine example is Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis who proposed hand-washing for doctors because he noticed that there were fewer miscarriages and post-labor deaths when doctors washed their hands between an autopsy and a birth. This was, for one, against commonly accepted theory at the time, as the Germ Theory had not yet taken serious hold or had much evidence for it. For two, his proposal was later rejected, doctors stopped washing their hands, and Semmelweis was later committed into an asylum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
The CDC in the USA didn't even suggest hand-washing for doctors until the 1980's.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK144018/
"Washing our hands of it" is a relatively recent phenomenon, seriously. If it was "simply implications of an already established theory of cognition" I would think that we'd have a much longer, serious history of actual handwashing. For most of human history, humans have been absolutely fucking filthy. Early human history didn't even use soap for bathing as much as it was used for textiles. Even the Romans, known for bathing, used oils, not soaps. Further, before the Industrial Revolution, soap was mostly accessible to the aristocracy. The Industrial Revolution was... *checks notes... was 1760, about a hundred years before Semmelweis was one of the first people to propose hand-washing.
This is an extremely short time period for this behavior to be part of "an already establish theory of cognition." Whereas we have millions of years without serious hand-washing as part of human culture... which is where that established theory of cognition was developed... prior to handwashing.
Ah. I see that it seems as if I’m saying that hand-washing is the result of a theory of cognition, and that this theory of cognition suggests that hand-washing has been deeply ingrained in our psyches for millenia, somehow eliciting the results from the experiments.
I am not suggesting that. Sorry for not having been clear before. I’m tired so I’m sorry if this response is not clear as well. I’m happy to clarify any further misunderstandings.
This is the theory that I’m referring to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnSHpBRLJrQ (of course, there are academic publications on Relational Frame Theory, but this video shows its practical implications quite well)
Learn it in one. Derive it in two. Put it in networks, and that’s what you’ll do.
We have relational frames surrounding hand-washing. We also have relational frames for thousands of other thoughts and behaviors. When those two (hand-washing frames with other frames) combine, they can affect the way we think and act in ways that are novel and perhaps unusual.
Please let me know if this isn’t clear.