Hatred can be personality-driven and detached from any real threat

Evidence

Citing Fromm, Allport further distinguished rational hatred (for those who pose severe, realistic threats to one’s life or values) from “character conditioned” hatred arising from a lifetime of disappointments and frustration (see Duckitt, ch. 24 this volume). In the latter case, hatred is not meaningfully connected to the source of the frustration; rather, the individual “thinks up some convenient victim and some good reason. The Jews are conspiring against him, or the politicians are set on making things worse” (1954/1979, p. 364). In other words, hatred of this type is a function of personality abnormalities rather than being rationally targeted at groups that pose realistic threats. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2246

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the rational vs. character-conditioned distinction in Allport’s theory of hatred.
• XREF: Connects to the ‘kill by miscalculation’ and irrational-enemy themes in the broader psychology of intergroup conflict; also echoes 1984’s manufactured enemy logic (though that’s not in the library list).