Artículos de Palabra Clave · 2025

Sentimientos de odio ante fotografías racializadas: respuesta emocional y comportamental de adultos en redes sociales

Resumen

Prejudices and xenophobic attitudes are cognitive schemas that frame emotions and behaviours. They emerge most profusely in the digital media ecosystem and are articulated as hate speech, primarily through comments on social media attracted by photographs. Thus, this study aimed to explore the association between the emotional response to images depicting racialised and non-racialised individuals and the likelihood of negative messages in virtual settings, such as social media. For this purpose, 103 Spanish participants (age X = 40.32) were recruited through Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and shown 46 images, together with pictographic scales for assessing emotional response (Self-Assessment Manikin). The likelihood of writing a comment and its valence were also queried. The results revealed significant differences across categories in emotional response and in the possibility of posting a negative comment, with images of racialised individuals having the highest values. The emotional pattern of those who indicated a high likelihood of negative comments was identified as fear of negative images of racialised individuals and hate for positive ones. These results contribute to the emotional characterisation of perpetrators of hate speech in digital and social media, specifically those related to xenophobic attitudes.