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 involved in hateful language 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 the type of moral content invoked through hate speech varied by context, with Purity language prominent in hateful propaganda and online hate speech and Loyalty language invoked in hateful slurs across languages. Our findings provide a new psychological lens for understanding hateful language and points to further research into the intersection of morality and hate, with practical implications for mitigating hateful rhetoric online.

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.

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The spread of misinformation has become a major concern to society, particularly in the age of social media. We show here that aligning online messages with audiences' core moral values leads to increased sharing, independent of message veracity, message familiarity, and users' analytical thinking ability. The results suggest that misinformation is driven by motivational factors, such as alignment with one's core moral values, above and beyond cognitive factors. Our findings further indicate the susceptibility of audiences to manipulation via simple framing strategies, their potential use in targeted misinformation campaigns, and thus the need to develop effective countermeasures.