Why We Hate

In a comprehensive review of classic as well as more contemporary conceptualizations of hatred, Royzman, McCauley, and Rozin (2005) described hatred as the most destructive affective phenomenon in the history of human nature. These destructive implications of hatred on human life have been widely documented in several recent contributions (e.g., Halperin, 2011; Levin & Nolan, 2015a, 2015b; Opotow & McClelland, 2007; Sternberg, 2005; Sullivan, Ong, La Macchia, & Louis, 2016). This literature shows that hate has been defined in a variety of ways, a problem characteristic for emotions in general. Hate has been considered an emotional attitude (Ekman, 1992), a syndrome (Solomon, 1977), a form of generalized anger (Bernier & Dozier, 2002; Frijda, 1986; Power & Dalgleish, 1997), a generalized evaluation (Ben-Ze’ev, 2000), a normative judgment (McDevitt & Levin, 1993), a motive to devalue others (Rempel & Burris, 2005), or simply an emotion (Elster, 1999). Despite these different views, it is remarkable that there is little theorizing about hate, although the topic seems to be getting increasing attention in recent years. Even more surprisingly, there is not much in-depth empirical research on hatred, especially not in psychology. Interestingly, other disciplines, such as sociology, political science, communication, and social justice research have provided interesting new empirical data, in particular on hate crime and hate speech.

The fact that hate is an underresearched topic in psychology may be due to several factors. First, hate is a phenomenon that is complex to empirically investigate with the standard psychological methods and samples. The standard student population of the majority of psychological studies report that they have never experienced hate (e.g., Aumer, Krebs Bahn, & Harris, 2015; Halperin, 2008). For example, Halperin (2008, Study 1) aimed to examine people’s lay theories of hatred. For that purpose, he asked 40 Israelis to think of one event in their lives in which they felt hatred. All 40 interviewees immediately said that they had never experienced hatred. They further stated that they had felt extreme anger, that they knew other people who experienced hatred, and that they were aware of the prevalence of hatred in conflict zones. But to feel hatred towards other people? Not them. Ironically, some of the participants who said that they had never hated someone throughout their entire lives then described specific situations in the history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in which they had wanted to throw a bomb on a large Palestinian city, or situations in which they wanted to do everything to annihilate or destroy the Palestinians. These examples illustrate the social inappropriateness of hate and the unwillingness to acknowledge feeling such a destructive emotion.

Second, hate has never been conceived as a standard emotion and thus did not gain from the rising popularity of the psychological study of emotions in the last decades. For example, in most empirical investigations based on appraisal theories (e.g., Roseman, 1984; Scherer, 2005), one can find emotions such as dislike, anger, or contempt, but hate is systematically lacking (but see Fitness & Fletcher, 1993; Halperin, 2008). In this review, we will try to make up for this lack of attention, and analyze the literature on hate from different disciplinary perspectives and at different levels of analysis. We will start with defining the characteristics of hate, and addressing the question whether hate is an emotion or something else, or both. Second, we will move on to the analysis of hate at different social levels (from individual to intergroup). Third, we will analyze how and why hate spreads, including hate crimes and hate speech. Fourth, we will discuss the role of hate in society. Finally, we will end with a reflection on the role and function of hate at different levels of analysis and will then offer some future venues of research.

Most authors who have written on hate agree that it is a powerful negative emotional phenomenon (Aumer-Ryan & Hatfield, 2007; Royzman et al., 2005; Sternberg, 2003), although not all scholars would define it as an emotion. Hate is assumed to develop when others mistreat or humiliate someone, or whose deliberate actions have become an obstruction to someone’s goals (Aumer-Ryan & Hatfield, 2007; Baumeister & Butz, 2005; Royzman et al., 2005; Sternberg, 2003). Hate obviously shares characteristics with several other negative emotions, especially anger, contempt, or moral disgust (Fitness & Fletcher, 1993; Frijda, 1986; Halperin, 2008; Oatley & Jenkins, 1996). Indeed, hatred is partly characterized by features that are not unique to hatred. To make the demarcation with other emotions even more complex, it is highly likely that hate feelings are often accompanied by other negative emotions, maybe especially because hate is such an intense feeling. For example, individuals may report hate if appraising an event as contradicting their goals and interests (relevant to all negative emotions), perceiving the other’s behavior as unjustified and unfair (characteristic of anger), morally inferior (characteristic of contempt), or morally nauseating (prototypical for disgust). In other words, anger, contempt, disgust, humiliation, revenge feelings, and hate can all be elicited in reaction to a similar event, namely when another’s action is perceived as negative, intentional, immoral, or evil (Haidt, 2003; Rozin, 1999).

The question then is whether and how hate is different from these closely related emotions. We argue that we can theoretically distinguish these emotions on the basis of their appraisal patterns, action tendencies, and motivational goals. With respect to appraisals, hate is different from anger, because an anger target is appraised as someone whose behavior can be influenced and changed (Fischer & Roseman, 2007; Halperin, 2008; Halperin, Russell, Dweck, & Gross, 2011). A hate target, on the contrary, implies appraisals of the other’s malevolent nature and malicious intent. In other words, hate is characterized by appraisals that imply a stable perception of a person or group and thus the incapability to change the extremely negative characteristics attributed to the target of hate (Allport, 1954; Royzman et al., 2005; Schoenewolf, 1996; Sternberg, 2003). Its appraisals are targeted at the hate target itself, rather than at specific actions carried out by that target (Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988). While we feel anger because a certain action by a certain person or group is appraised as immoral, unfair, or unjust, if that very same person changed their behavior, the levels of anger would be reduced and the person would be forgiven. However, the entire configuration of hatred appraisals focuses on the innate nature, motives, and characteristics of the target itself and therefore a momentary change in certain behavioral patterns will not necessarily diminish levels of hatred. One hates one’s father because he is perceived as a bad father in one’s entire youth, not just once. An individual hates his wife because she has betrayed him and humiliated him deeply and repeatedly. In such cases, there is nothing the hate target can do to make up or repair. The other is malicious, not just acts maliciously. This assessment also contributes to feelings of powerlessness, which have often been reported as a characteristic condition in the development of hate (Sternberg, 2005). Indeed, Fitness and Fletcher’s (1993) prototype analysis of hate (vs. anger, jealousy, and love) shows that the concept of hate includes low levels of control, high levels of obstacles, and intense unpleasantness, because one feels badly treated, unsupported, humiliated, ignored, or uncared for. This sense of powerlessness may be fed by the appraisal that hate targets are dangerous and may execute their malicious intentions at any time.

In short, on the basis of preliminary evidence we propose that when individuals experience hate, they typically perceive their hate target as having malicious intentions and being immoral, which is accompanied by feelings of lack of control or powerlessness. Such appraisals are not the result of one specific action, but of a belief about the stable disposition of the hated person or group. This stable and dispositional attribution of negative characteristics to the target of one’s emotion can also be found in appraisals of contempt (see also Halperin, 2008; Jasini & Fischer, 2018) and disgust (Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2011). In the case of contempt, however, the target of one’s emotion is seen as inferior (Fischer & Giner-Sorolla, 2016), and in the case of disgust, appraisals are more specifically related to violations of a moral code in relation to what happens with one’s own body, such as bodily contamination (Fischer & Giner-Sorolla, 2016). Appraisals of humiliation are more specific than those of hate, entailing the appraisal of a specific act as extremely derogating and a threat to one’s self-worth (see e.g., Mann, Feddes, Doosje, & Fischer, 2016), which is also the case for feelings of revenge (see Seip, 2016). In sum, the core set of appraisals of hate seems to be the attribution of stable and malicious intentions to the target, accompanied by appraisals of danger and feelings of powerlessness.

However, the main difference that make hate stand out from other negative emotions can be especially found in its action tendencies and emotivational goals. According to Roseman, Wiest, and Swartz (1994), an emotivational goal reflects what the emotion tries to bring about, and thus drives the emotional experience. Action tendencies are very closely associated with emotivational goals as they reflect the emotional impulse to act on a specific goal (see also Rempel & Burris, 2005). The coercion goal for example is closely associated with the tendency to attack someone (either verbally or physically), and the exclusion goal is associated with the tendency to ignore or look down on someone (Roseman et al., 1994). Emotivational goal can implicitly be found in others’ theorizing as well. White (1996) for example describes hatred as the desire to harm, humiliate, or even kill its object—not always instrumentally, but rather to cause harm as a vengeful objective in itself. Bar-Tal (2007) also suggested that hatred is a hostile feeling directed toward another person or group that consists of malice, repugnance, and willingness to harm and even annihilate the object of hatred. Whereas anger implies a coercion goal, that is, the motive to change another person by attacking, confronting, or criticizing, contempt implies an exclusion goal (Fischer & Roseman, 2007), motivating individuals to exclude others from their social environment (Halperin, 2008; Halperin, Canetti, & Kimhi, 2012; Jasini & Fischer, 2018). Adopting a social functional perspective on emotions (e.g., Fischer & Manstead, 2016; Keltner & Haidt, 1999), we propose that the emotivational goal of hate is not merely to hurt, but to ultimately eliminate or destroy the target, either mentally (humiliating, treasuring feelings of revenge), socially (excluding, ignoring), or physically (killing, torturing), which may be accompanied by the goal to let the wrongdoer suffer (Ben-Ze’ev, 2008). Although actions and expressions related to hate, anger, contempt, disgust, humiliation, or revenge can be similar, their emotivational goals are different (see Figure 1). Anger has the emotivational goal to change the target (e.g., by attacking), contempt has the goal to socially exclude (e.g., by avoiding or derogating), and revenge has the goal to restore the equity in suffering and deter (Seip, 2016). Humiliation has shown to have different goals, depending on the specific context: to withdraw and protect oneself (Mann et al., 2016) or to rehumiliate, that is, take revenge.

How exactly the emotivational goal of hate is translated into a specific action will differ, depending on why someone has developed hate and what the relation between the victim and perpetrator is. The best way to eliminate the parent one hates, for example, is to completely ignore them and ban them entirely from one’s life, whereas the best way to destroy hated CEOs may be to derogate, ridicule, and scorn them. In extreme occasions, violence or actual murder may be a viable option, but if this is not feasible, then one can cherish feelings of revenge. We will come back to the relationship between hater and the hated later in this review.

There is abundant evidence that many emotions can be experienced at both an individual and group level. Yet, not all emotions have the same potential to transcend from the individual to the group or collective level. We think that hatred can more easily go through a transformation from individual to group level than other negative emotions; some will even claim that it is the most “group-based” emotion. Aristotle succinctly states that whereas anger is customarily felt toward individuals, hatred is often felt towards groups (see also Ben-Ze’ev, 1992). One reason for this can be found in the core characteristics and the nature of hate. We have argued and shown that hate is based on the generalized attribution of an action to the basic traits and features of a person. In other words, the specific antecedent event of one hateful incident may become less important over time, and the character of the person or group becomes the sole reason for the hate. Generalizing these characteristics to members of a group further enables a parsimonious justification of one’s hate. This facile transition of hatred from the interpersonal level to the group level makes it a pivotal agent in group-based political dynamics in general and in intergroup conflicts in particular.

There are three factors that further contribute to the flourishing of hate specifically at the intergroup level. First, hate seems often shared among ingroup members (see Jasini & Fischer, 2018). According to Rimé (2009), the extent of sharing one’s emotions is influenced by the intensity of the emotional experience, and the primary targets of sharing generally are close family members and friends. In contexts where intergroup relations are tense, groups share collective narratives about their own group and other groups. For example, previous studies on social sharing have found that people who are victims of violence and ferocities and thus experience collective trauma, often share their emotional experience with other group members (Rimé, 2009). In intractable conflicts, collective narratives are dominated by the memory of past victimization and by ongoing intergroup violence (Bar-Tal, Chernyak-Hai, Schori, & Gundar, 2009; Canetti, Elad-Strenger, Lavi, Guy, & Bar-Tal, 2017; Noor, Shnabel, Halabi, & Nadler, 2012; Vollhardt, 2012). Thus, collective victimhood evokes sharing one’s feelings about the target of hate with similar others. Knowing that other ingroup members experience an event in a similar way further reinforces the experience and expression of one’s own emotions (see also Manstead & Fischer, 2001). The sharing of strong negative emotions can in turn strengthen feelings of collective victimhood that may make the original feeling of hate even more intense and enduring (see also Bar-Tal, Halperin, & De Rivera, 2007; Kuppens, Yzerbyt, Dandache, Fischer, & van der Schalk, 2013). Thus, sharing past negative emotional experiences caused by an outgroup increases the probability for the development of intergroup hatred (see also Jasini & Fischer, 2018).

Second, while collective victimhood keeps the memory of hate alive across generations, it may also direct the appraisal of future events. Accumulated group knowledge on the immoral and violent behavior of an outgroup affects the evaluation of future behavior, thereby confirming the sentiment that the outgroup is a homogeneous malicious entity. In the eyes of those who see themselves as part of a transgenerational victimized group, the outgroup is malicious, even though they did not personally suffer from the outgroup behavior, or only for a relatively short time. The fact that the outgroup’s behavior is considered consistent across generations reflects on its innate negative characteristics. Moreover, shared appraisals on similar emotional events reinforce the emotional fit between individuals and their cultural group (De Leersnyder, Boiger, & Mesquita, 2015), as does identification with the group (Delvaux, Meeussen, & Mesquita, 2015). In turn, the emotions also influence self-categorization, suggesting that similar emotions strengthen feelings of belonging to the same group (Livingstone, Spears, Manstead, Bruder, & Shepherd, 2011; Porat, Halperin, Mannheim, & Tamir, 2016).

A final and third interesting aspect of hatred that makes it more susceptible to become an intergroup sentiment that spreads fast, is the fact that it can increase in the absence of any personal interaction between the hater and members of the hated group. According to Jasini and Fischer (2018), the lack of personal interactions with the targets of one’s hate further diminishes chances of perspective taking from the side of the victim. Allport (1954) already mentioned the lack of direct interaction as one of the most powerful engines behind hate and prejudice. According to his approach, supported by studies in the framework of contact theory (e.g., Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), lack of direct interaction amplifies hate because the negative appraisal of the malicious character of the group will never be reappraised or contradicted by other information. For example, since Israel completed the construction of the separation wall, Jewish Israelis do not need to suppress their hate towards the Palestinians anymore, because the wall prevents direct encounters with individual Palestinians. Thus, Israelis are not confronted anymore with exceptions to the Israeli view of Palestinians and the hateful image of the Palestinians can easily remain intact. This does not necessarily mean that social interactions with hated group members automatically reduce hate. However, under the right circumstances, haters may learn more about the motives and circumstances of the hated group’s actions, which could result in some perspective taking.

Some characteristics of a culture or society form fertile grounds for the development of hate. In his book on the roots of evil—genocide and mass killing—Staub (1989) argues that, first of all, difficult life conditions such as extreme economic problems leading to poverty of large groups of people, but also political, criminal, or institutional violence, facilitate evil intentions. The second set of features refers to culture, especially the rigidity or adaptability of a society. The more rigid the cultural values in a society, the more difficult it is to cope with changes or disturbances of one’s traditional values and ways of life. According to Staub (1989), this may lead to scapegoating, trying to protect oneself and one’s group to defend one’s way of life, safety, health, and values. Blaming others helps to fulfill these needs in times of chaos and uncertainty, and this forms the basis for the development of hate towards groups in society that are seen as the cause of all problems. Other characteristics, such as strong leaders, strong respect for authority, nationalism, and a slow progression of devaluing outgroups are the further ingredients for the slow but steady development of societal hate (Staub, 1989). Waller (2002) refers to this latter set of characteristics as collective potentiation, the social augmentation of individual actions in a group, whether good or bad. In the case of hate, it may refer to all the characteristics of a society or culture at a specific point in time when the devaluation of an outgroup may turn into real hate, and activate its associated goals to annihilate that group.

Under such conditions, the initial development of hate can be a consequence of short-term conflict-related events, but then may automatically result in support for initiating violent actions and for further escalating the conflict. That is also the reason that Staub (2005) and others (e.g., Petersen, 2002; Volkan, 1997) have pointed to hate as the most dominant emotion in past and recent mass murders and genocide (see also Mishra, 2017). If one is convinced of the destructive intentions of the outgroup and feels total despair regarding the likelihood that the outgroup will change its ways, the violent alternative may seem the only reasonable and successful way out. Indeed, research has shown that feelings of hatred may increase the tendency to support extreme military action toward outgroups (e.g., Halperin, 2011). The perception of increased threat is a powerful amplifier of hatred. Ongoing terrorist attacks elicit stress, fear, and uncertainty (Canetti, Russ, Luborsky, Hobfoll, & Gerhart, 2014), and become fertile ground for increasing hate for groups perceived as responsible for the turmoil. Additionally, the aftermath of such events demonstrates that perceived security threats prevail over other issues, such as individual rights and freedoms (Canetti-Nisim, Ariely, & Halperin, 2008).

Hate has also been described as part of a broader societal sentiment coined “ressentiment” (Betz, 1994; but see Salmela & von Scheve, 2017) in theories on the growing support of right-wing populism. These scholars consider hate as part of a cluster of negative emotions. In particular, feelings of insecurity and shame can easily be transformed into anger, resentment, and hate towards other groups, like immigrants, refugees, or the political elite (Salmela & von Scheve, 2017). However, whereas various negative emotions may play a role in mobilizing people to support outgroup derogation and even violence, and to oppose compromises for peace and forgiveness, we think that intergroup hate is the most powerful one. There are two main reasons for this. First, hate is associated with very low expectations for positive change and with high levels of despair, and as a consequence, its associated political action tendencies are by definition destructive rather than constructive. If one does not believe that positive change in the outgroup’s violent and immoral behavior is possible, then constructive political reactions—like negotiations, compromises, gestures, or even apologies, which are usually meant to establish more friendly relations—seem just irrelevant (see also Tausch et al., 2011). In addition to that, the emotional goal associated with hate, namely to do destroy or eliminate the outgroup, also leads to one-sided political actions that do not leave any room for positive or constructive change. This is apparent from the hate speech spread by ISIS, who describes their online propaganda as “the Internet army” (Shaaban, 2015).

Hate can even be a destructive force in the midst of peace negotiations. Two studies found that individuals who experienced short-term episodes of hatred in times of negotiations in the Middle East expressed an emotional goal of harming and eliminating the opponent (Halperin, 2008). They likewise tended to reject any positive information regarding the opponent (i.e., lack of openness) and opposed the continuation of negotiations, compromise, and reconciliation efforts (Halperin, 2011). Importantly, given that hatred is associated with a fundamental negation of the outgroup as a whole, and not merely of the group’s concrete actions or behavior, those who feel hatred toward the outgroup oppose even the smallest gestures and symbolic compromises, thus refusing to even entertain new ideas that may lead to peace. Two experimental studies conducted in 2011 on the eve of an important peace summit between Israelis and Palestinians show that inducing anger toward Palestinians increased support for making compromises in upcoming negotiations among those with low levels of hatred, but decreased support for compromise among those with high levels of hatred (Halperin et al., 2011).

There is also evidence that hate fuels political intolerance. Political intolerance is the support or willingness to denounce basic democratic values and equal rights of individuals who belong to a defined outgroup in a particular society (Gibson, 2006; Stouffer, 1955) and is considered one of the most problematic phenomena in democratic societies. Results of four large-scale nationwide surveys among Jews in Israel showed that intergroup hatred is the most important antecedent of political intolerance. It has a stronger effect in the face of heightened existential threat and is especially present among politically unsophisticated individuals—that is, those lacking exposure to political information, intellectual capacity, or efforts to obtain and understand political information (Halperin et al., 2009).

The question is what makes hate so persistent and prevalent in politics, more so than anger or fear. Hatred seems an effective, simple, political tool that is commonly used by politicians to attain ingroup solidarity and political benefits and/or outgroup exclusion. Campaign ads, canvassing, and slogans based on collective hatred are the bread and butter of successful campaigns because the message is simple and emotionally appealing (Hutchings, Valentino, Philpot, & White, 2006; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944). Hatred has been employed in a number of local and national political campaigns in Israel, Europe (Mudde, 2005), and the United States (Kaplan & Weinberg, 1998). The simple and extreme nature of hatred increases its recurrence in the political realm (Leader et al., 2009). The intensity, swiftness, and superficiality of current political communication in many countries enforce cues, symbols, and extreme emotions such as hatred (Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Kinder & Sears, 1985).

Notwithstanding the context of moral values, hatred may be problematic from a political perspective. From a leadership perspective, fine-tuning of the exact patterns of hatred is almost impossible; hence, hate rhetoric can backlash. On the one hand, the use of hate rhetoric may attract traditional voters, encouraging them to reconsider their typical support as they search for new paths to channel their group-based hate and opt for more extreme political representation. On the other hand, the use of hatred to mobilize new voters may enhance their support for their own traditional parties (Halperin et al., 2012).

Hate is elicited in reaction to very negative transgressions by another person or group. It can be an emotional reaction to a specific event (i.e., immediate hate), but it often occurs as a sentiment (long-term emotion), generalizing from just one event to the nature of a group or person. Especially extreme transgressions may result in a plethora of negative emotions, like contempt, disgust, anger, humiliation, or revenge; and thus the question is to what extent and how hate differs from other emotions. We think that there is overlap between these negative emotions, but we can still theoretically distinguish them on the basis of unique patterns of appraisals and emotivational goals. This does not mean that daily lives are neatly carved up according to these theoretical categories, especially because these emotions may often be elicited in reaction to the same events, and thus may occur either simultaneously or sequentially. On the basis of research on interpersonal and intergroup hate, we suggest that the unique appraisals of hate are a stable, dispositional attribution of malicious intentions, in combination with the appraisal that the target is seen as dangerous and that one feels powerless (see Figure 1). The emotivational goal associated with hate is to destroy the hate target, whether physically, socially, or symbolically. This goal is associated with the aforementioned appraisals and is different from the goals of contempt (social exclusion), disgust (distancing oneself), revenge (getting even), humiliation (withdrawal), or anger (attack). Still all these emotions can occur together with hate and each of them can become associated with the sentiment hate.

From a functional perspective, hate is part of a self-defense system by attempting to eliminate the target of one’s hate. In an intergroup context, one’s group identity is threatened by an outgroup member, and self-defense implies defense of one’s group membership. Hate seems particularly prone to spreading at this intergroup level because it helps us to defend ourselves by strengthening the ties with our ingroup and putting all the blame for insecurity and violence elsewhere. Because hate is based on the perception of a stable, malevolent disposition of the other person, haters perceive little room for constructive change, and therefore there seem only radical options left to act upon one’s hate. In case of most emotions, the fulfillment of the emotivational goal reduces the emotion. For example, one may seek revenge in order to get even in suffering, and once this has been established, feelings of revenge decrease (see also Seip, Rotteveel, van Dillen, & van Dijk, 2014). In the case of hate, this means elimination of the target. This leaves the question whether hate can be changed or down-regulated. We think that this is difficult, and the only way to regulate hate would be to reappraise the malevolent intentions of the outgroup as stable and as a result of their identity or character. Trying to explain the hated target’s actions in terms of circumstances rather than nature would be a first step. In the same vein, merely being angry, devoid of hate, would be a much more constructive emotion because its intensity can be decreased if the target apologizes or changes their behavior. Whether we can down-regulate hate, and how it relates to perspective taking, empathy and forgiveness are interesting and socially relevant venues for future research.