Emotional and cognitive correlates of hating among adolescents: An exploratory study

The phenomenon of hate is becoming common among adolescents, but is little investigated by literature. Typically the haters leave their insults on the victim's social pages to denigrate another person, famous or not. In the literature, to date, there are no scientific studies that have explored psychological variables linked to these behaviors. The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychological correlates of pathological worry and cognitive distortions (CD) related to hating behaviors.

Participants (202 female and 200 male, mean age 14.9) of this study completed the Hating Adolescents Test (HAT), the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), and the How I Think Questionnaire (HITQ).

Preliminary results show significant gender differences in the variables of the study: on hating and CD "minimizing," males reported higher scores than females, and females scored higher than males on pathological worry. The mediation model suggests that the CD "assuming the worst" is a mediator in the relationships between pathological worry and hating behaviors.

The study suggests how the tendency towards pathological worry influences hatred among adolescents, but a relevant component is represented by the tendency to distort information and to consider ambiguous situations as hostile. The implications of these findings for future theoretical and empirical research in this field are discussed.