Linguistic Evidence for the Dissociation Between Impurity and Harm: Differences in the Duration and Scope of Contamination Versus Injury

Abstract

Previous research has shown that harm and impurity are relevant to a different extent across individuals and transgressions. However, the source of these differences is still unclear. Here, we combine language analysis and social-moral psychology to articulate the core defining features of impurity versus harm. In Study 1 (a–c), we found systematic variation in language use, indicating that people infer that contamination, unlike injury, affects a target completely and irreversibly, rendering them a transmitter of contamination. In Study 2 (a–b), we investigated how evoking intuitions about these core features of contamination—completeness, irreversibility, and transferability—influences judgments of impurity and harm. We found that implying effects on a target were complete and irreversible altered judgments of impurity, but not harm. Overall, our research supports the conclusion that impurity and harm are substantially distinct in cognition and moral judgment; unlike harm, impurity connotes negative effects that spread continually across space and time.