Ever felt like kicking yourself after saying something mean? New research could explain why we’re driven to such self-punishment. Physical pain, it turns out, can be remarkably effective at relieving feelings of guilt.

Self-flagellation and the like are not a new idea – conceptions of pain as punishment run deep – but there is little hard evidence about how corporal self-punishment affects a person’s psychology.

Now Brock Bastian at the University of Queensland in Brisbane and colleagues have tested if pain really does have the capacity to “cleanse the soul”.

Put it on ice

The team divided 62 volunteers into three groups and asked two of the groups to write about a time when they rejected or socially excluded another person. The third wrote about an everyday interaction.


Afterwards, the participants completed a standard psychological questionnaire that included a measure for guilt. Next the team asked some participants to immerse one hand in an ice bucket for as long as they could and the others to dip it into a bucket of warm water.

After this experience, the participants were asked to rate how painful they felt it was. The team also remeasured their feelings of guilt.

Participants who had written about rejecting another left their hands in the ice bucket for longer than those who had written about a normal interaction. They also reported more pain – regardless of how long their hand was in the ice.

Crucially, participants who placed their hand in ice later had less than half as much guilt, as measured by the questionnaire, as those who had put their hand in warm water.

The Dobby effect

The authors suggest that people subconsciously seek out pain to relieve their guilt. Rob Nelissen at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, who wasn’t involved in the study, has previously described a guilt-induced tendency to seek punishment as the “Dobby effect” – named after Harry Potter’s self-punishing house-elf.

He says that self-punishment might relieve guilt by functioning as “a signal by which a transgressor shows remorse to his or her victim when there are no other less painful means available, such as giving a bunch of flowers”.

“In line with this view, excessive forms of self-punishment could be perceived as a consequence of unresolved guilt,” Nelissen adds.

Journal reference: Psychological Science, DOI: 10.1177/0956797610397058