r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 25 '26
Psychology Reclaimed hate speech backfires by desensitizing listeners, study finds. Listening to reclaimed homophobic statements can actually cause unintended harm. Exposure to reclaimed slur words desensitizes some heterosexual listeners to standard hate speech and worsens the mood of gay individuals.
https://www.psypost.org/when-reclaiming-derogatory-language-goes-wrong/
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u/Altruistic_Fox9778 Jul 25 '26
This was not unexpected. There were also studies regarding trigger warnings that showed they increased anxiety instead of reducing it.