I wanted to find a social psychological theory on hate and use evolutionary psychology principles to refute it. I noticed right away that social psychology does not seem to have a unified theory on hate. Instead, there are a lot of different theories that cover intergroup aggression, prejudice, and hate crimes. I did find an interesting theory by Robert Sternberg known as the Duplex Theory of Hate. He describes hate in two parts: as a triangle and as a story. He describes hate as a combination of: negation of intimacy (expressed as disgust and avoidance), passion (expressed as intense fear and anger), and commitment (expressed as devaluation though contempt). He also proposed that hate emerges from different kinds of stories, such as stranger vs. in-group, barbarian vs. civilized in-group, criminal vs. innocent party, and animal vs. human.
When I read about this theory, I thought it sounded very reasonable and interesting, but it only considers the conscious phenomenon of hate without explaining the function of it. It also discusses hate in terms of multiple emotions (disgust, anger, fear, contempt, etc.) instead of treating hate as an emotion itself. I think it’s illogical to define an emotion with other emotions.
Sternberg’s “stories” seemed to be just that – made up stories. He did not discuss what methods were used
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Indeed, even one step may start the process” (Sternberg). That seems like a cop-out to me, because there will be a lot of variability in the causes of hate when it is viewed as a story. When we use Sell’s definition of hate – that “hatred is triggered by indicators that another’s existence and well-being will cause harm” – it will explain evidence that Sternberg’s theory cannot. Sternberg’s theory cannot explain the high incidence of crimes against elders and children that need a lot of extra