No ideas but in things is more than a poet’s conceit. Case in point: according to this Scientific American article by David Biello, behavioral researchers Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto and Katie Liljenquist at Northwestern University are slowly documenting an overlap between the physical act of washing and a sense of being morally cleansed.

The researchers are also interested in whether there’s a correlation between “environmental cleanliness” and behavior.

Perhaps the outside of the cup matters after all.

UPDATE: link no longer works, sorry.