Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2022
Publication Title
European Journal of Social Psychology
Abstract
We investigated whether any differences in the psychological conceptualization of hate and dislike were simply a matter of degree of negativity (i.e., hate falls on the end of the continuum of dislike) or also morality (i.e., hate is imbued with distinct moral components that distinguish it from dislike). In three lab studies in Canada and the United States, participants reported disliked and hated attitude objects and rated each on dimensions including valence, attitude strength, morality, and emotional content. Quantitative and qualitative measures revealed that hated attitude objects were more negative than disliked attitude objects and associated with moral beliefs and emotions, even after adjusting for differences in negativity. In Study 4, we analysed the rhetoric on real hate sites and complaint forums and found that the language used on prominent hate websites contained more words related to morality, but not negativity, relative to complaint forums.
Keywords
attitudes, dislike, emotions, hate, morality
DOI
10.1002/ejsp.2906
ISSN
00462772
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Pretus, Clara; Ray, Jennifer L.; Granot, Yael; Cunningham, William A.; and Van Bavel, Jay J., "The Psychology of Hate: Moral Concerns Differentiate Hate from Dislike" (2022). Psychology: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/psy_facpubs/169
Comments
Archived as published. Open access article.