Understanding and Overcoming Hate
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  • Understanding Hate
    • Introduction
    • What is Hate? >
      • Hate as an Emotion >
        • Papers: Hate as an Emotion
      • Hate as a Belief >
        • Papers: Hate as Belief
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        • Papers: Hate as an Act
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        • Papers: Hate as Policy
    • The Roots of Hate >
      • Early Imprints >
        • When Needs are Not Met
        • Papers; Not Meeting Needs
      • What Are We Doing To Our Children? >
        • Children in Dire Circumstances
      • Effects of Trauma and Abuse >
        • Papers: Stress Effects
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      • Causes and Effects of Bullying
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      • Authoritarian Upbringings >
        • Papers: Authoritarian Roots
        • Papers: SDO and Authoritarianism
      • Absolutism and Insularity >
        • Papers: Absolutism
      • Papers: Early Roots of Prejudice
      • Impaired Cognition >
        • Papers: Impaired Cognition
      • The Violent Brain >
        • Papers: Violent Brain
      • Roots of Violence and Cruelty >
        • Chart: Powderkeg Formula
        • Papers: Roots of Violence
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    • How Hate Manifests >
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        • Papers: Social Rejection
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      • Social Injustice and Discrimination >
        • Papers: Discrimination
        • Papers: Inequality
        • Articles: Inequality Effects
        • Articles: Cognitive Exhaustion
        • "White" Privilege
      • Stereotyping and Caricature >
        • Papers: Stereotyping
        • Stereotyping
      • Prejudice, Racism and Bigotry >
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        • Papers: Prejudice Racism
        • Papers: Skin color and face
        • Papers: InGroup Outgroup
        • Papers: Implicit Bias
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          • More blog posts
      • Dehumanizing >
        • Views about the outsider
        • Papers: Dehumanizing
      • Hate Crimes >
        • Papers: Hate Crimes
      • Hate Groups >
        • Links: Hate Groups Research
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        • Papers: Collective Violence
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        • Papers: Search for Belonging
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        • Papers: System Justification
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        • Papers: Perceptual Illusions
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      • What is a Belief? >
        • Papers: Belief Formation
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        • Papers: Salience
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        • Papers: Categorizing
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        • Papers: Embodied Cognition
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        • Papers: Story Creation
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        • Papers: Meaning
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    • Index: All Biases, Distortions and Influences
  • Overcoming Hate
    • Overview of Topics
    • Introduction
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      • Meeting Formative Needs of Children >
        • Papers: Child and Brain Development
        • Papers: nurturing, attachment bonding
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        • Papers: Social Support
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        • Papers: Reducing Prejudice
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Understanding how we dehumanize and categorize others is a major factor in the study of group psychology and prejudice.


Throughout history, the disenfranchised have been viewed as “less deserving” by those in power or by mainstream society, which has caused vast injustice to be perpetrated. Native Americans and aboriginals were seen as savages, and slaves were considered animals without souls. The British upper classes viewed other segments of society as the “lower forms.” Early political and economic philosophers were concerned with the rising peasant class. British economist Malthous considered the reproduction rate of the uneducated masses to be the greatest threat to civilization, but never considered acting to uplift the poor. Although the ideals of the Enlightenment viewed all people as potentially free and rational, it took numerous social advances to prove that illiterate and malnourished people could be healthy and as mentally capable as any other class, after the disenfranchised and their children were provided with decent nutrition, education and opportunity.

Almost all institutionalized discrimination can be traced to the tendency of the group in power to maintain the rationale for remaining in authority. [See System Justification]

These prejudices are built on assumptions so etched into society that examples of bias are ubiquitous. Misguided scientists have misinterpreted tests to prove lesser intelligence, developed measurements based on physical attributes to categorize classes of people, etc.

Dehumanization is deliberately inculcated in soldiers by military propaganda in combat training: “My enemies are sub-human—it’s OK to kill them.” In the fog of war, the trauma of combat can easily shut down humane considerations.



Examples of dehumanization:

  • Merchants in Rio de Janeiro hire death squads to eradicate street children whom they consider to be ‘vermin’.
  • As the crusaders plowed down thousands of heathens in Constantinople, Turkish Christians screamed out their allegiance, but were ignored and slaughtered in the melee.
  • At various stages during the Eugenics movement, the U.S. government and other European nations instituted unwarranted sterilization of the deaf and mentally challenged, the poor, immigrants and other minority groups.

Dehumanization reaches its zenith in systematic acts of genocide. 


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Link to academic papers and articles on dehumanization