And I Took That Personally – The Effects of National Identity Threats on the Development of Hate Feelings

Berg, Sanne de (2025) And I Took That Personally – The Effects of National Identity Threats on the Development of Hate Feelings. Master thesis, Psychology.

Text DeBergMasterThesis20242025.pdf Restricted to Repository staff only until 31 December 2025. Download (683kB)

Abstract

There is still much to be discovered about hate as an emotion and what triggers it in an intergroup context. A proposed antecedent of intergroup hate has been national identity threat. It was hypothesized that a national identity threat made by an outgroup member (vs. ingroup member; threat level) elicits more hate. Moreover, previous research identified that symbolic threats result in more negative affect, therefore, Branscombe et al. (1999) taxonomy of four identity threat types (categorization, distinctiveness, morality, and categorization; threat type) were being used. It was hypothesized that morality threat would elicit higher hate levels. Additionally, an interaction effect between threat level and threat type was expected. National identity centrality was hypothesized to act as a covariate. An online experimental study using a combined within-subject and between-subject design was conducted on a sample of Americans (N = 387) where their national identity was threatened through fictious X posts that were either written by an American (ingroup member) or a Chinese person (outgroup member) containing the four threat types as conditions as well as a fifth no-threat condition was used. Interestingly, results indicated no effect of threat level, however, an effect of threat type, national identity centrality, and an interaction between them was found. Competence threat seemed to result in higher hate levels, particularly as national identity centrality increases. A follow-up mediation analysis exploring the role of threat perception between threat type and hate revealed that national identity threats elicit higher hate levels if the individuals perceives them as personally threatening. The current research revealed interesting new directions for hate and identity threat research.

Item Type:	Thesis (Master)
Supervisor name:	Martinez Moreno, C.A.
Degree programme:	Psychology
Differentiation route:	Applied Social Psychology (ASP) [Master Psychology]
Date Deposited:	27 Aug 2025 08:33
Last Modified:	27 Aug 2025 08:33
URI:	http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/5893

Actions (login required)

View Item