The simple act of hand-washing has been shown to help clear a guilty conscience and even make you more forgiving of the moral mi

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问题     The simple act of hand-washing has been shown to help clear a guilty conscience and even make you more forgiving of the moral mistakes of others. It’s known as the Macbeth principle of morality: we make a fundamental, psychological association between physical purity and moral purity, which lets us literally wash away our sins. The trick even works in the opposite direction, with cleanliness prompting moral behavior in one study, people exposed to a clean-smelling environment were induced to act more fairly and charitably toward strangers than people in a neutral-smelling place.
    Now a new study published in Science asks whether hand-washing can wipe the slate clean of any past behavior—even everyday decisions, like, say, choosing Paris over Rome for vacation. When people make choices, especially between two similarly attractive options, they tend to go to great lengths to justify them as psychological assurance they’ve made the right decision.
    The mental exercise reduces post-decisional doubt and the authors of the new study found that handwashing eliminated people’s need to do it. As part of an alleged consumer survey, 40 undergraduates browsed 30 CD covers as if they were in a music store. They selected 10 CDs they would like to own and ranked them by preference. Later, the experimenter offered them a choice between their fifth- and sixth-ranked CDs as a token of appreciation from the sponsor. After the choice, participants completed an seemingly unrelated product survey that asked for evaluations of a liquid soap; half merely examined the bottle before answering, whereas others tested the soap by washing their hands. After a filler task, participants ranked the 10 CDs again.
    "People who merely examined the soap bottle dealt with their doubts about their decision by changing how they saw the CDs: as in hundreds of earlier studies, once they had made a choice, they saw the chosen CD as much more attractive than before, and the rejected CD as much less attractive," said study co-author Norbert Schwarz, a psychologist at University of Michigan. "But hand-washing eliminated this classic effect. Once participants had washed their hands, they no longer needed to justify their choice when they ranked the CDs the second time around."
    The researchers repeated the experiment, this time asking participants to rank the desirability of four kinds of fruit jam. Once again, volunteers who wiped their hands clean after choosing showed the kind of satisfaction with their decision that the non-wipers lacked. Still, there’s no guarantee that a bout of handwashing will avoid post-decision regret in the long run. As far as those big decisions go, however, you’re probably best off engaging in good old-fashioned justification.
It is implied in the last paragraph that hand-washing ________.

选项 A、can’t promise post-decision satisfaction
B、can also apply to making big decisions
C、is able to avoid post-decision regret
D、will replace traditional justification

答案A

解析 根据题干可直接定位到文章最后一段。由该段第三句可知,洗手并不能保证避免做出选择后的悔恨感,也就是说,洗手并不能保证做出决定后就一定会有满意的感觉,故选A项。该段第四句说,“至于重大决定,也许最好用常规的老方法说服自己所做的是正确的选择”,说明洗手这个方法虽然在实验中带来了决定后的满意感,但并非万试万灵,也不能保证长期有效,最好不要用于做重大决定,B项可排除。由第三句可知,洗手并不能保证可以长期避免做出选择后的悔恨感,C项不完全正确。第四句建议重大决定最好还是用常规的老方法说服自己,可见洗手并不能取代传统的方法,D项错误。
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