Events like the riots in Brazil, the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection two years before it and the mass shooting at the Colorado LGBTQ nightclub each occurred after certain groups repeatedly directed dangerous rhetoric against others. It’s the reason elected officials in the U.S. have begun examining the role language plays in provoking violence.
As a social psychologist who studies dangerous speech and disinformation, I think it’s important for citizens, legislators and law enforcement alike to understand that language can provoke violence between groups. In fact, there are different types of threat in rhetoric that in-groups – people we identify as “us” – use to trigger violence, against out-groups – people we perceive as “them.”
