Hate A socio-functional theory of group-based hate

Hate has been theorized as one of the most destructive negative emotions, as its core tendency is to eliminate the hateful object, either metaphorically or literally. People hate when they consider another person or group as having malicious intentions towards them, not because of a specific act but because they have an evil character. I propose a social functional theory of hate that explains why hate is an enduring sentiment that offers people social advantages, despite its destructive nature. I consider hate as both an enduring sentiment and an incident-based emotion. The sentiment hate is strongly associated with emotional prejudice of certain groups, whereas hate as an emotion can be a reaction to extremely negative or recurring transgressions that deeply affect someone’s personal life, one’s values and self. Both manifestations of hate intensify each other. Two conditions that evoke, sustain or increase hate, rather than other negative emotions, are (1) the nature of the event and (2) the inclusion of hate as part of one’s collective identity. Both conditions also result in more sharing, which in turn leads to the spreading of hate across generations, individuals who feel politically or morally unified or ingroup members more generally. The cluttering of such groups online further reinforces the sharing of hateful messages and makes hate easier to sustain than to give up. Finally, I will discuss some examples of how we can diminish hate.