Hate Is Justified When Values Are Threatened: Evidence from Ideologically Threatening Tweets and Real World Events

How do ideological threats, both online and offline, influence people from different political ideologies? Prior work primarily focuses on threats affecting Conservatives, but less is known about how Progressives respond when their core values are challenged. We investigate this gap through a time series analysis of political polarization polls (N1 = 34,000 respondents) and three experimental studies (N2 = 400, N3 = 600, N4 = 600) that illustrate the impact of ideologically threatening content, both via social media and in real-life contexts, on political prejudice in the US. We find experimental and correlational evidence that exposure to threats against your ideology increases the justification of extreme behaviors toward outgroup members, behaviors widely considered expressions of prejudice or hate, with Progressives being more reactive to relevant threats experimentally. Our results highlight the psychological underpinnings of polarization and the dangers associated with threatening content on social media, providing novel evidence that shows political ideology influences how people perceive threats, which in turn influences the endorsement of acts of hate, particularly in digital environments where ideological threats are frequently amplified.