Hands Off My Self

It's easy, if not exactly logical, to feel that the possessions of certain individuals are somehow contaminated, as if by an invisible virus. Would you hesitate to wear a murderer's clothing, even if it had been sanitized? Many people would, a response psychologists attribute to "magical contagion." A recent paper finds that this sense of contagion may also work the other way around: People seem averse to the idea of their own remnants falling into someone else's hands.

In two studies, American adults tended to report discomfort with imagined scenarios in which materials that had been physically or psychologically linked to them—such as their blood, hair, or a diary—were found by a stranger. The negative reaction held for most materials and generally surfaced whether the discoverer was a violent criminal, an enemy, or an anonymous 30-year-old.

While it may feel creepy to picture an unknown man stashing a vial of one's blood, it's unlikely that such a scenario could result in direct harm. "It may be that it's a sort of privacy invasion that someone has a piece of you," suggests University of Pennsylvania psychologist Paul Rozin, who co-authored the paper. If told that the finder would burn or discard the object, participants typically felt more comfortable with the outcome.

Though the idea would have to be tested separately, researchers speculate that the kind of unease they have identified might help explain why some people are put off by the thought of donating certain sorely needed resources. "There may be people who are uncomfortable about giving up an organ," Rozin says, "if their essence lives in some stranger."