The Psychology of Hate

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Do you hate anyone? Hate is something that people almost universally attempt to claim to denounce when asked. Hate has always been associated with the wrong side of things and immorality. My evidence for this is a very wise Jedi master who famously said, "…hate leads to the dark side." However those who claim to hate a specific person or a specific group of people often believe their form of hate is justified due to a set of moral principles they believe the object of their hate drastically falls out of line with. 

I did a post about confirmation bias that talks about how we seek out information that confirm our beliefs and discount information that goes against them. This is a very important component of how and why hatred exists. A meta-analysis conducted by Hart, et al. in 2009 published in the Psychological Bulletin finds that we are substantially more concerned with feeling validated than we are with finding the truth. 

Hart et al. discuss the different ways in which we try and decrease the amount of conflicting beliefs we feel. We experience both a defense motivation, which is when we seek out validating information to defend ourselves against the discomfort of conflicting principles, and accuracy motivation, which is when we seek out as much information as possible to arrive at the correct outcome. They actually found that we are significantly more likely to use defense motivation on a regular basis, and that there is only a relationship for people using accuracy motivation to select their information when the correct outcome provides some kind of utility for them.

This study finds that we are so concerned with feeling validated in our beliefs, that we will easily and often forgo any information that refutes our beliefs. They report in their discussion that "[s]electing congenial information can facilitate feeling validated about one's view or even maintaining stable views of the world but may reduce accuracy and flexibility". When we reduce accuracy and flexibility in selecting what information we’re exposed to we become substantially more polarized and intolerant in our beliefs, leading us to only seek out the information that reinforces those beliefs.

Who we spend time with also can have an impact on hatred. We have an affinity for those in our own social circle, because we largely spend time with people who have similar beliefs to our own. If we're constantly reinforced by those beliefs and no others, we're not only inflating our ego by validating what we believe, but also making those beliefs substantially stronger and inflexible. This means that if the people we spend time with have very strong beliefs, we are extremely likely to strengthen our own beliefs that align with our peers and discount other people’s beliefs much more easily.

It's very effortless for us to hate someone if we think they hate us or are attacking us. It’s actually intuitive and natural for people to defend themselves when they feel they’re being attacked –that’s just part of basic human instinct. However when there’s a false narrative of a group of people being attacked, and they “defend themselves” by aggressing, hatred will quickly spread out of fear. People fear a loss of what they have and what they stand for, so when that is challenged, they lash out. I will once again site the wisest small green… thing (what actually is Yoda?) in the galaxy: “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to the dark side”.

This is how hate spreads every single time. A narrative is put out saying "x group is attacking you, or infringing on your rights, or wants you dead, etc." This makes us extremely defensive and angry. "Why would x group feel this way? I believe I'm a good person. X group doesn't understand who I am and them challenging my values frustrates me." Then it almost always devolves into: "If they're attacking me I'm going to attack them back" and this is how hate is spread. In order for people to be capable of hate they have to believe they are being threatened, even if in reality they aren’t being threatened at all.

Another part of what fuels hatred can be boiled down to in-group and out-group mentality. Simply put, the in-group is what we are part of and the out group is what they are a part of. This quite literally creates an "us vs. them" mentality which can be a very potent catalyst for acts of hatred. It's extremely easy for us to place blame on "the other" to suit the in-group's agenda.

An article published in the Association for Psychological Science by Nir Halevy, Gary Bornstein, and Lilach Sagiv in 2008 discusses how groups will employ solidarity tactics, highlighting similarities among members as well as reinforcing collective group identity in order to strengthen in-group altruism and increase punishment of those who reject the group identity. This drastically boosts the amount of aggression toward the out-group, due to the fact that such a difference exists. This study finds "the fear of falling behind is more of a motivation than the aspiration to get ahead," for groups and individuals. So if a group believes another group is causing them to “fall behind”, they will be motivated to compete with that other group to ensure they are not the ones behind.  

A super interesting result that Halevy, Bornstein, and Sagiv found was that groups aren't inherently violent or aggressive towards other groups. This study actually shows that groups prefer to work together towards common goals in order to increase absolute group gains. The competition towards other groups only happens when the in-group believes their goals are mutually exclusive with the out-group's goals. "[W]hen maximizing in-group gain necessitates hurting the out-group, in-group members do not hesitate to compete". What this means is that when a group feels their goals and values are being attacked or that group gain is a zero-sum game, they are more likely to be aggressive towards other groups. 

So how do we solve this? Yes I’m postulating how we solve hatred and no I don’t think I have the ultimate solution to world peace despite my ego and my mom telling me otherwise. Decreasing hatred starts with exposure to other groups. Countless studies have demonstrated that when exposure to different groups of people is increased, tolerance for those groups of people is likewise increased. So we need to increase our exposure to other viewpoints always and constantly. Another thing we need to do is stop consuming fear-inducing sources of information. That is to say we need to stop consuming forms of information whose primary motivation is to have as many people consume that information as possible, using fear as a strategy to do so. The goal of those sources of information is to make you believe you are being attacked so you consume more information from them.

At the end of the day violence towards a group of people stemming from hatred is unacceptable and should be rejected in all instances. Selective exposure and confirmation bias expose us to viewpoints that only align with what we already believed. Out-group hatred is engendered when groups believe they’re being attacked or that gain is zero-sum. Hatred isn’t something that’s intrinsic to us but is learned; by the people we surround ourselves with and the type of information we choose to consume. We need to fight hatred with education, love, and of course the teachings of Jedi Master Yoda.