Current research projects

• Contempt speech. Psychological mechanisms of the spread of verbal aggression towards minority groups

dr Wiktor Soral

assistant professor/post-doc

Research interests

My current work focuses on the psychological mechanisms responsible for the spread of hate speech. I investigate what are the consequences of frequent exposure to hate speech, and what are the conditions under which one will reproduce hateful content. In a separate line of research I study different forms of perceiving agency in the social world. Specifically, I investigate how sense of lack of agency/control can translate into a search for external sources of agency/control (e.g., conspiring outgroups).

Recent publications

• Soral, W., Kofta, M., & Bukowski, M. (2021). Helplessness experience and intentional (un-)binding: Control deprivation disrupts the implicit sense of agency. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 150(2), 289–305.
  https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000791
• Soral, W., Liu, J., & Bilewicz, M. (2020). Media of contempt: Social media consumption predicts normative acceptance of anti-Muslim hate speech and islamoprejudice. International Journal of Conflict and Violence, 14(1), 1-13.
  https://doi.org/10.4119/ijcv-3774
• Bilewicz, M., & Soral, W. (2020). Hate speech epidemic. The dynamic effects of derogatory language on intergroup relations and political radicalization. Political Psychology, 41, 3-33.
  https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12670
• Soral, W., & Kofta, M. (2020). Differential effects of competence and morality on self-esteem at the individual and the collective level. Social Psychology, 51, 183-198.
  https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000410.
• Kofta, M., Soral, W., & Bilewicz, M. (2020). What breeds conspiracy antisemitism? The role of political uncontrollability and uncertainty in the belief in Jewish conspiracy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118(5), 900–918.
  https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000183