Hatred is an intense negative emotional response towards certain people, things or

idea In common usage and in philosophy, ideas are the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophers have considered ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of being ...

s, usually related to opposition or revulsion toward something. Hatred is often associated with intense feelings of

anger Anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat. A person experiencing anger will often experience physical effects, su ...

, contempt, and disgust. Hatred is sometimes seen as the opposite of

love Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest Interpersonal relationship, interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of ...

. A number of different definitions and perspectives on hatred have been put forth. Philosophers have been concerned with understanding the essence and nature of hatred, while some religions view it positively and encourage hatred toward certain outgroups. Social and psychological theorists have understood hatred in a utilitarian sense. Certain public displays of hatred are sometimes legally proscribed in the context of pluralistic cultures that value tolerance. Hatred may encompass a wide range of gradations of emotion and have very different expressions depending on the cultural context and the situation that triggers the emotional or intellectual response. Based on the context in which hatred occurs, it may be viewed favorably, unfavorably, or neutrally by different societies.

Emotion

As an

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...

, hatred can be short-lived or long-lasting.Y Ito ed., ''Encyclopedia of Emotion'' (2010) p. 302 It can be of low intensity - 'I hate broccoli' - or high intensity: 'I hate the whole world'. In some cases, hatred can be a learned response from external influences, such as from being abused, misled, or manipulated. As a general rule, hatred is the deep psychological response to feeling trapped or being unable to understand certain sociological phenomena.

Robert Sternberg Robert J. Sternberg (born December 8, 1949) is an American psychologist and psychometrician. He is Professor of Human Development at Cornell University. Sternberg has a BA from Yale University and a PhD from Stanford University, under advisor ...

saw three main elements in hatred: # a negation of intimacy, by creating distance when closeness had become threatening; # an infusion of passion, such as fear or anger; # a decision to devalue a previously valued object. The important self-protective function, to be found in hatred,I Craib, ''Psychoanalysis'' (Cambridge 2001) p. 208 can be illustrated by Steinberg's analysis of 'mutinous' hatred, whereby a dependent relationship is repudiated in a quest for autonomy.

Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

defined hate as an ego state that wishes to destroy the source of its unhappiness, stressing that it was linked to the question of self-preservation.

Donald Winnicott Donald Woods Winnicott (7 April 1896 – 25 January 1971) was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of object relations theory and developmental psychology. He was a leading member of the Br ...

highlighted the developmental step involved in hatred, with its recognition of an outside object: "As compared to magical destruction, aggressive ideas and behaviour take on a positive value, and hate becomes a sign of civilization". In his wake,

object relations theory Object relations theory is a school of thought in psychoanalytic theory centered around theories of stages of ego development. Its concerns include the relation of the psyche to others in childhood and the exploration of relationships between ...

has emphasised the importance of recognising hate in the analytic setting: the analyst acknowledges his own hate (as revealed in the strict time-limits and the fee charged), which in turn may make it possible for the patient to acknowledge and contain ''their'' previously concealed hate for the analyst. Adam Phillips went so far as to suggest that true kindness is impossible in a relationship without hating and being hated, so that an unsentimental acknowledgement of interpersonal frustrations and their associated hostilities can allow real fellow-feeling to emerge.

Legalities

In the English language, a

hate crime A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime or bias crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership (or perceived membership) of a certain social group or racial demograph ...

(also known as a "bias-motivated crime") generally refers to criminal acts which are seen to have been motivated by hate. Those who commit hate crimes target victims because of their perceived membership in a certain

social group In the social sciences, a social group can be defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties ...

, usually defined by race,

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...

mental disorder A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

disability Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be Cognitive disability, cognitive, Developmental disability, dev ...

class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...

ethnicity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

nationality Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...

age Age or AGE may refer to: Time and its effects * Age, the amount of time someone or something has been alive or has existed ** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1 * Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older ...

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the i ...

, or

political affiliation A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...

.Stotzer, R.
Comparison of Hate Crime Rates Across Protected and Unprotected Groups
, Williams Institute, 2007–06. Retrieved on 2007-08-09. Incidents may involve

physical assault An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...

destruction of property Property damage (or cf. criminal damage in England and Wales) is damage or destruction of real or tangible personal property, caused by negligence, willful destruction, or act of nature. It is similar to vandalism and arson (destroying propert ...

bullying Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) of an imba ...

harassment Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates or embarrasses a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral ...

verbal abuse Verbal abuse (also known as verbal aggression, verbal attack, verbal violence, verbal assault, psychic aggression, or psychic violence) is a type of psychological/mental abuse that involves the use of oral, gestured, and written language direct ...

or insults, or offensive graffiti or letters ( hate mail).Hate crime
, Home Office

Hate speech Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...

is speech perceived to disparage a person or group of people based on their social or ethnic group, such as race,

sex Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones (ova, oft ...

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

ability,

ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...

social class A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...

, occupation, appearance (height, weight, skin color, etc.), mental capacity, and any other distinction that might be considered a liability. The term covers written as well as oral communication and some forms of behaviors in a public setting. It is also sometimes called

antilocution Antilocution describes a form of prejudice in which Affirmative and negative, negative Speech, verbal remarks against a person, group, or community, are made but not addressed directly to the subject. History American psychologist Gordon Allport ...

and is the first point on

Allport's scale Allport's Scale is a measure of the manifestation of prejudice in a society. It is also referred to as Allport's Scale of Prejudice and Discrimination or Allport's Scale of Prejudice. It was devised by psychologist Gordon Allport in 1954. The sca ...

which measures

prejudice Prejudice can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's per ...

in a society. In many countries, deliberate use of hate speech is a criminal offence prohibited under ''incitement to hatred'' legislation. It is often alleged that the criminalization of hate speech is sometimes used to discourage legitimate discussion of negative aspects of voluntary behavior (such as political persuasion, religious adherence and philosophical allegiance). There is also some question as to whether or not hate speech falls under the protection of freedom of speech in some countries. Both of these classifications have sparked debate, with counter-arguments such as, but not limited to, a difficulty in distinguishing motive and intent for crimes, as well as philosophical debate on the validity of valuing targeted hatred as a greater crime than general misanthropy and contempt for humanity being a potentially equal crime in and of itself.

Neurology

The neural correlates of hate have been investigated with an

fMRI Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area o ...

procedure. In this experiment, people had their brains scanned while viewing pictures of people they hated. The results showed increased activity in the middle frontal gyrus, right putamen, bilaterally in the premotor cortex, in the

frontal pole The vertebrate cerebrum (brain) is formed by two cerebral hemispheres that are separated by a groove, the longitudinal fissure. The brain can thus be described as being divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres. Each of these hemispheres ...

, and bilaterally in the medial insular cortex of the

human brain The human brain is the central organ of the human nervous system, and with the spinal cord makes up the central nervous system. The brain consists of the cerebrum, the brainstem and the cerebellum. It controls most of the activities of the ...

. Those

suffering Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness or aversion, possibly associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of a ...

from Misophonia have been known to express hatred when triggered.

Ethnolinguistics

Hate, like love, takes different shapes and forms in different languages. While it may be fair to say that one single emotion exists in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

(haine), and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

(Hass), hate is historically situated and culturally constructed: it varies in the forms in which it is manifested. Thus a certain relationless hatred is expressed in the French expression ''J'ai la haine'', which has no precise equivalent in English; while for English-speakers, loving and hating invariably involve a force, an object, or a person, and therefore, a relationship with something or someone, ''J'ai la haine'' (literally, I have hate) precludes the idea of an emotion directed at a person. This is a form of frustration, apathy and animosity which churns within the subject but establishes no relationship with the world, other than an aimless desire for destruction. French forms of anti-Americanism have been seen as a specific form of cultural resentment, registering joy-in-hate.

Religion

A United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom and religion cited the concept of collective hatred based on religion, which he described as a man-made phenomenon caused by deliberate actions and omissions of hate-mongers. Hatred can also be sanctioned by religion. The Hebrew word describing the psalmist's "perfect hatred" (Ps. 139.22) means that it "brings a process to completion". There are also sources that explain how Islam developed around hatred for unbelief since it is considered the source of evil and that adherents endeavor to spread the Qur'anic faith as the vehicle for its eradication. A specific example is hate speech. It is explained that religion aims to convert new adherents and that extreme speech made against other religion or its adherents is considered a tool so that changing other's beliefs is effective.

Philosophy

Philosophers from the ancient time sought to describe hatred and today, there are different definitions available.

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

, for instance, viewed it as distinct from anger and rage, describing hate as a desire to annihilate an object and is incurable by time.

David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philo ...

also offered his own conceptualization, maintaining that hatred is an irreducible feeling that is not definable at all.