Identifying hate speech in societal context: When psychological factors are more important than contents

We tested how Muslim participants identify speeches as hate speech or not, and whether they thought an apology from the speakers is needed. In Studies 1a (N = 209) and 1b (N = 183), participants were asked about a speech delivered by a prominent ingroup figure showed that hate, meta-hate, and collective narcissism tended to identify a prejudiced speech about outgroup members as not related to hate speech, and thus no apology is needed. Nonetheless, the resulting path was in contrast to participants who believe the outgroup nature as good. With similar predictors of Study 1, Study 2 (N = 191) showed that when participants were asked to identify a (non-harmful) speech about ingroup delivered by a minority outgroup member, there was an opposite path compared to Study 1. Across all findings, we argue that in the real-world setting, how a speech, with or without harmful contents, is identified depends on positive or negative views about ingroup and outgroup members by which it can dictate people's understanding and denial.