Received: 18 April 2016 | Revised: 6 September 2017 | Accepted: 7 September 2017 DOI: 10.1002/ab.21737 RESEARCH ARTICLE Exposure to hate speech increases prejudice through desensitization Wiktor Soral 1 | Michal Bilewicz 2 | Mikolaj Winiewski 2 1 Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland 2 Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland Correspondence Wiktor Soral, Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, Stawki 5/7, 00-183 Warsaw, Poland. Email: wiktor.soral@gmail.com Funding information Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education Iuventus Plus, Grant number: IP2014 002273 In three studies (two representative nationwide surveys, N = 1,007, N = 682; and one experimental, N = 76) we explored the effects of exposure to hate speech on outgroup prejudice. Following the General Aggression Model, we suggest that frequent and repetitive exposure to hate speech leads to desensitization to this form of verbal violence and subsequently to lower evaluations of the victims and greater distancing, thus increasing outgroup prejudice. In the first survey study, we found that lower sensitivity to hate speech was a positive mediator of the relationship between frequent exposure to hate speech and outgroup prejudice. In the second study, we obtained a crucial confirmation of these effects. After desensitization training individuals were less sensitive to hate speech and more prejudiced toward hate speech victims than their counterparts in the control condition. In the final study, we replicated several previous effects and additionally found that the effects of exposure to hate speech on prejudice were mediated by a lower sensitivity to hate speech, and not by lower sensitivity to social norms. Altogether, our studies are the first to elucidate the effects of exposure to hate speech on outgroup prejudice. KEYWORDS desensitization, hate speech, prejudice 1 | EXPOSURE TO HATE SPEECH INCREASES PREJUDICE THROUGH DESENSITIZATION In 2014, the National Football League considered passing a rule penalizing those who use ethnic slurs on the field (King, 2014). Several years earlier, a similar decision had been made by the New York City council (Pilkington, 2007). In 2012, the Council of Europe started a campaign aimed at reducing the presence of hate speech in public spaces. What unites these actions is a desire to protect the rights and well-being of different minority groups. Indeed, previous studies found that public expressions of hate speech affect psychological well-being and the suicide rate among minorities (Mullen & Smyth, 2004), the exclusion of minorities from the society (Mullen & Rice, 2003), the devaluation of minority members (Greenberg & Pyszczynski, 1985), and the discriminatory distribution of public resources (Fasoli, Maass, & Carnaghi, 2014). However, hate speech affects not only the situation of minorities but it also modifies attitudes and opinions of majority group members. Hate speech violates social norms and as such it poses a threat to social order, similar to other forms of intergroup violence. In that respect, most people—particularly normocentric ones—oppose public expressions of hate speech (Bilewicz, Soral, Marchlewska, & Winiewski, 2017; Crandall, Eshleman, & O'Brien, 2002). In this article, we analyze how the mere presence of hate speech can affect individuals' beliefs and opinions regardless of people's initial opposi- tion to it. This will help explain why, despite growing equality, awareness, and political correctness, hate speech can still affect intergroup relations in contemporary societies. We employ the model of desensitization from aggression research (Carnagey, Anderson, & Bushman, 2007; see also Bartholow, Bushman, & Sestir, 2006; Funk, Baldacci, Pasold, & Baumgardner, 2004; Krahé et al., 2011). This body of research suggests that frequent exposure to aggressive messages, such as those found in video games (Bartholow et al., 2006), movies, and television (Krahé et al., 2011), or Aggressive Behavior. 2017;1–11. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ab © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | 1