The (Moral) Language of Hate

Humans use language toward hateful ends, inciting violence and genocide, intimidating and denigrating others based on their identity. Despite efforts to better address the language of hate in the public sphere, the psychological processes underlying the development of hate remain unclear. In this work, we hypothesize that morality and hate are concomitant in language. In a series of studies, we find evidence in support of this hypothesis using language from a diverse array of contexts, including the use of hateful language in propaganda to inspire genocide (Study 1), hateful slurs as they occur in large text corpora across a multitude of languages (Study 2), and hate speech on social-media platforms (Study 3). In post-hoc analyses focusing on particular moral concerns, we found that language about purity and spiritual degradation were strongly salient in hateful linguistic communication. Our findings provide a new lens for understanding the psychologicalunderpinnings of out-group hate and its associated behaviors, with practical implications for mitigating hateful rhetoric online.