Contamination without contact: An examination of intention-based contagion

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). © 2016.