Imagining wrong: Fictitious contexts mitigate condemnation of harm more than impurity.

Over 5 experiments, we test the fictive pass asymmetry hypothesis. Following observations of ethics and public reactions to media, we propose that fictional contexts, such as reality, imagination, and virtual environments, will mitigate people's moral condemnation of harm violations, more so than purity violations. That is, imagining a purely harmful act is given a "fictive pass," in moral judgment, whereas imagining an abnormal act involving the body is evaluated more negatively because it is seen as more diagnostic of bad character.