Causes and consequences: Do we all have the capacity for hatred?

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Experts say hate can drive aggression, hostility and violence. Credit: SBS/Getty Images

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In this new series, Understanding Hate, we unpack the forces driving division, and ask what it takes to protect social cohesion.

Nick Haslam, Professor of psychology from the University of Melbourne, told SBS Examines hatred often stems from a sense of "unfair victimisation that you've suffered, and there's not much you can do about it."

People feel hatred in response to humiliations or maltreatment they think they've suffered at the hands of another personal group.

"That drives an emotional state, which is often a chronic kind of anger or content or aggressiveness or hostility. And that motivates action, which is usually some sort of revenge or distancing or desire to see the people who you hate suffer in some way."

Associate Professor Matteo Vergani, Director of the Tackling Hate Lab, says there's an evolutionary basis for prejudice — but we can "override emotional impulses".

"Of course humans can resist hate," he said.

This episode of SBS Examines: Understanding Hate looks at the psychological roots of hate, and the impact of extreme division in our society.

Transcript

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SBS acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia.

Nic

From SBS Examines, I’m Nic Zoumboulis. In this series, Understanding Hate, we unpack the forces driving division, and ask what it takes to protect social cohesion. In this episode, we’re looking at both the causes and effects of hatred.

Nick Haslam

Hatred is that kind of intense, lasting dislike of someone because of the group they belong to, based on some sense that they're intrinsically evil or morally wicked.

Nic

That’s Nick Haslam, professor of psychology at the University of Melbourne.

Nick Haslam

It's based on a belief that you have suffered unfairly, unreasonably at the hands of someone else or some other group. And that drives an emotional state, which is often a chronic kind of anger or contempt, aggressiveness or hostility. And that motivates action, which is usually some sort of revenge or distancing or desire to see the people who you hate suffer in some way.

Nic

But where does hatred come from? And are we all susceptible to it? Matteo Vergani, associate professor of sociology and director of the Tackling Hate Lab, says prejudice was once an important social tool for our ancestors.

Matteo Vergani

So for thousands of generations, human beings lived in small bands, hunting, gathering food in hostile environments where basically survival depended on the group. Strangers could bring violence or take resources. So this is why when we see someone who looks different, our brain immediately says, danger, fear, run. However, this is not the end. Of course, humans can resist hate. So we have a prefrontal cortex in our brain which can override emotional impulses.

Nic

We may not be living as hunter gatherers anymore, but for many of us, online communities and social media can be a gateway to exacerbating hatred.

Tim Dean

Posts that are angry or outraged or express some kind of negative sentiment, they spread more than posts that say something positive. That's engagement, that is money to the social media companies.

Nic

That’s Dr Tim Dean, resident philosopher at The Ethics Centre.

Tim Dean

It can lead to us calling people out, getting online, shouting about it, creating a sense of a moral panic. It prevents us from engaging and trying to understand, and it can prevent us from perspective taking to understand that people see the world, engage the world in different ways.

Nic

Back in 2020, Erin Wen Ai Chew was surveying Asian Australians on their experiences of racism tied to the pandemic. She says mis and disinformation was contributing to ignorance and hatred towards her community.

Erin Wen Ai Chew

A lot of doctors who were of Asian heritage were coming on social media telling people that patients were refusing care from them because to the patients, they looked Chinese, whether they were or not.

Nic

Erin, who is the co-founder of the Asian Australian Alliance, says being on the receiving end of hatred can leave people feeling uncomfortable with their cultural identity and like a perpetual outsider.

Erin Wen Ai Chew

That's where you get people who try to distance themselves from being Chinese, from being Asian, because they feel ashamed. They feel that the only way that they're going to be accepted in Australian society is to assimilate and also hate on everything that's Chinese and hate their own cultural background.

Nic

Erin feels that although Australia is generally a welcoming society, some forms of hatred have been normalised.

Erin Wen Ai Chew

The Boxing Day, cricket match last year when India was playing, and then the crowds were yelling, ‘where's your visa?’ Whatever it was. So to a lot of people, they look at that and they say, that's not racist, that's not hatred.

Nic

This is where things can get tricky. Professor Haslam says that people tend to differ a lot in what they define as being hateful, and we can't assume everyone sees it the same way.

Nick Haslam

So there's a lot of research showing that some people are more likely than others to define certain phenomena as instances of hate. Some people are much more likely to see the use of racial slurs as being intrinsically hateful and violent, other people less so.

Nic

From the Ethics Centre, Dr Dean says we can be justified in our outrage towards others, but when it comes to the ethical aspect of hatred and outrage, what really matters is how we choose to react. He says there are questions we can ask ourselves to prevent hatred from occurring before it crops up.

Tim Dean

How can we take other people's perspectives? How can we listen to understand with an open-mind, with curiosity? And then there's a lower chance that hatred will even emerge in the first place, and then we have less to worry about in terms of appropriate response.

Nic

This episode was produced and presented by Nic Zoumboulis. To find out more, visit sbs.com.au/sbsexamines

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