Contamination without contact: An examination of intention-based contagion

Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 11, No. 6, November 2016, pp. 554–571 Contamination without contact: An examination of intention-based contagion Olga Stavrova∗ George E. Newman† Anna Kulemann‡ Detlef Fetchenhauer § Abstract Contagion refers to the belief that individuals or objects can acquire the essence of a particular source, such as a disgusting product or an immoral person, through physical contact. This paper documents beliefs in a "contact-free" form of contagion whereby an object is thought to inherit the essence of a person when it was designed, but never actually physically touched, by the individual. We refer to this phenomenon as contagion through creative intent or "intention-based contagion" and distinguish it from more traditional forms of contact-based contagion (Studies 1 and 2), as well as alternative mechanisms such as mere association (Studies 2 and 3a). We demonstrate that, like contact-based contagion, intention-based contagion results from beliefs in transferred essence (Study 1) and involves beliefs in transfer of actual properties (Study 4). However, unlike contact-based contagion, intention-based contagion does not appear to be as strongly related to the emotion of disgust (Study 1) and can influence evaluations in auditory as well as visual modalities (Studies 3a–3c). Keywords: sympathetic magic, music, contagion, morality. 1 Introduction People are averse to objects that were once in contact with disliked or disgusting sources such as a sweater worn by a serial killer, or a hat that belonged to a Nazi officer (Hood, 2009; Rozin, Haidt, McCauley, Dunlop & Ashmore, 1999; Rozin, Millman & Nemeroff, 1986). These phenomena are often explained by the law of contagion (Frazer, 1890/1959; Mauss, 1902/1972) — the belief that individuals or objects can inherit the ’essence’ of a particular source through touch (Rozin et al., 1986). A growing literature within psychology has demonstrated that beliefs in contagion are quite pervasive and can influence people’s attitudes and behaviors across a variety of contexts. Contagion beliefs have been shown to affect purchase decisions in: retail settings (Argo, Dahl & Morales, 2006; 2008; Morales & Fitzsimons, 2007); preferences for luxury goods (Newman & Dhar, 2014); auction behavior and collecting (Newman & Bloom, 2014; Newman, Diesendruck & Bloom, 2011); desires to keep sentimental possessions (Grayson & Shulman, 2000); gambling decisions (Mishra, Mishra & Nayakankuppam, 2009; Wohl & Enzle, 2002); predictions about the future (Stavrova & Meckel, 2016); ability and performance (Kramer & Block, 2014; Lee, Linkenauger, Bakdash, JoyGaba & Profitt, 2011); preferences for sacred land (Rozin & Copyright: © 2016. The authors license this article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. ∗ Department of Social Psychology, Tilburg University, Warandelaan 2, 5037 AB Tilburg, email: . † Yale School of Management, Yale University ‡ School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent § Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology, University of Cologne Wolf, 2008); and even the choice of organ transplant donors (Hood, Gjersoe, Donnelly, Byers & Itajkura, 2011; Meyer, Leslie, Gelman & Stilwell, 2013). Historically, researchers have emphasized the importance of physical contact in motivating contagion effects. In fact, physical contact is central to how contagion has been defined in the literature (Rozin et al., 1986). More recently, however, a number of studies have documented apparent cases of contagion that seem to obtain in the absence of physical contact per se (Kim & Kim, 2011; Smith, Newman & Dhar, 2016). For example, Kim and Kim (2011) showed that not only objects touched by a murderer but also objects in his physical proximity are rated as less desirable. In another example, Smith et al. (2016) demonstrated that products (e.g., vinyl records) with earlier (vs. later) serial numbers are perceived as more likely to embody the "essence" of the artist and are valued more — a phenomenon the authors refer to as "temporal contagion". The present studies document another form of "contactfree" contagion whereby objects are believed to acquire the essence of a person when they were designed, but never actually physically touched, by the individual — a process we refer to as intention-based contagion. Six experiments examine the similarities and differences between intention-based contagion and more traditional forms of contact-based contagion. We also distinguish intention-based contagion from other related phenomena such as mere associations. We demonstrate that, like contact-based contagion, intentionbased contagion results from beliefs in transferred essence (Study 1) and therefore, individuals who show stronger belief in the transfer of essence are more like to respond to 554 Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 11, No. 6, November 2016 intention-based contagion. Also, we show that, similar to contact-based contagion, intention-based contagion is subject to "negativity bias" (Rozin & Royzmann, 2001) (Studies 1, 3a and 3c), shows a certain degree of permanence (Study 4), and involves beliefs in transfer of actual properties rather than just valence (Study 4). However, unlike contact-based contagion, we also demonstrate that intention-based contagion does not appear to be as strongly related to the emotion of disgust (Study 1), is restricted to spiritual characteristics such as morality (Studies 2 and 4), and can influence evaluations in auditory as well as visual modalities (Studies 3a–3c). 1.1 Theoretical background The concept of contagion was first articulated by early 20th century anthropologists (Frazer, 1890/1959; Mauss, 1902/1972) as a way to describe rituals and cultural practices observed in many "primitive" societies, such as eating animals in the hope of taking on those animals’ properties, or attaching one’s own lock of hair to land as a means of establishing ownership. More recently, numerous studies have demonstrated that contagion beliefs are also evident in modern day American and European cultures (Hood et al., 2011; Kim & Kim, 2011, Kramer & Block, 2014; Newman et al., 2011; Rozin, Grant, Weinberg & Parker, 2007; Rozin et al., 1986; Rozin, Nemeroff, Wane & Sherrod, 1989), in adults and children (Diesendruck & Perez, 2015). For example, these studies have shown that individuals are reluctant to drink orange juice briefly touched by a sterilized cockroach, to wear a sweater touched by a Nazi (Rozin et al., 1986; Newman et al., 2011) or to accept a perfectly healthy heart transplant from a murderer (Hood et al, 2011; Meyer et al. 2013). Interestingly, an aversion caused by a brief contact with a negatively-valenced source cannot be completely eradicated by different purification procedures, including sterilization, deodorizing or even burning, often interpreted as evidence of contagion’s permanency: "once in contact, always in contact" (Nemeroff & Rozin, 1 (...truncated)