Lofajová, Daniela (2025) Fueling Hate: The Power of Threatened Identity. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
Political polarisation has become a defining feature of contemporary democratic societies, eroding social cohesion and hindering constructive dialogue. While prior research has examined ideological differences in values, less is known about how the personal importance of identity interacts with political orientation to shape extreme emotional responses such as hate. This paper examined whether identity centrality predicts hate responses to perceived threats to a personally meaningful identity and whether political orientation moderates this relationship. U.S.-based participants recruited via Prolific completed measures of identity centrality, political orientation, and hate. Multiple regression analyses tested these associations. Results showed that higher identity centrality was associated with stronger hate responses, though this effect approached significance. Political orientation alone did not predict hate but moderated the relationship between centrality and hate. Among left-leaning participants, greater identity centrality was associated with stronger hate, whereas this association was weak and nonsignificant among rightleaning participants. These findings suggest that identity salience plays a central role in the emotional dynamics of political disagreement. Keywords: political orientation; identity centrality; identity threat; hate
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Martinez Moreno, C.A. and Al-Amine, M. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | None [Bachelor Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Nov 2025 10:05 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Nov 2025 10:05 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/5986 |
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