Description
TitleAre interpersonal dislike and hatred discrete emotions?
Date Created2020
Other Date2020-05 (degree)
Extent1 online resource (viii, 150 pages)
DescriptionDiscrete emotions can be identified by their particular patterns of phenomenological, expressive, behavioral, emotivational goal, and strategy characteristics. Prior research has distinguished anger and contempt in such responses, but are interpersonal dislike and hatred also distinct? This thesis aimed to examine whether dislike and hatred are distinct and whether they should be regarded as additional discrete emotions. To test this, Amazon Mechanical Turk workers completed online questionnaires about experiences of anger, contempt, dislike, and hatred, measuring hypothesized thoughts, feelings, expressions, behaviors, goals, and strategies. Hierarchical multiple regressions assessed the unique variance added by each emotion, after controlling for the others. Consistent with the hypothesis that it should be considered a discrete emotion, dislike predicted hypothesized responses in multiple components, and fit a pattern of relational avoidance. Although hatred explained the greatest significant unique variance in 21 proposed responses, overall more evidence suggested hatred is a variant of anger. That is, hatred appears to have the general properties of anger (it predicted each of the hypothesized anger responses, such as yelling and wanting to get back at someone) plus some unique characteristics (e.g., fantasizing about bad things happening to someone, and wanting someone to suffer). It is suggested that hatred is a variant of anger that is felt when someone is seen as unchangeably malevolent, and involves more intense attacks aimed at preventing the person from causing further harm. These findings may help theorists and researchers better understand distinctions among emotions, and contribute to predicting social behaviors and emotional disorders. Future research should continue to investigate emotion differentiation (particularly the overlap between anger and hatred), as well as possible temporal and relationship type moderating variables.
NoteM.A.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Genretheses, ETD graduate
LanguageEnglish
CollectionCamden Graduate School Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.