How To Know And Deal With Haters Around You?

When striving for success, coming across haters on your path is quite common. After all, it’s a sign of jealousy such haters show towards your constructive growth in life and may also leave no stones unturned in pulling you down. Oftentimes, the reason behind people showing hatred is pure insecurity. If you feel people around you seem to constantly degrade you for no apparent reason, chances are they secretly dislike or envy you. Spotting a hater is relatively easy if you keep your eyes and ears open. However, ignoring them to a certain degree can be exceptionally fruitful and a healthy choice. Coming across haters is not uncommon, be it social media or real life. Here’s the psychology behind why people hate so much and ways to deal with them tactfully.

The Psychology Of Haters

A comprehensive study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that we all have a “dispositional attitude,” a tendency to develop certain attitudes towards the various stimuli in our life. There are two types of dispositional attitudes.

What Is Positive Dispositional Attitude?

The people displaying it (lovers) are predisposed to optimism and seeing the best in people and situations. So they always find something they like, something to relate to, something to hang on to when things get tough.

For instance, a person may not like eating healthy food yet consume it because they know the positive outcome of eating vegetables and fruits.

What Is Negative Dispositional Attitude?

The people displaying this attitude define themselves through the things they hate. They expect the worst in every situation, focusing on the people’s negative traits and the situations they come across. They take more joy in other people’s failures than in their achievements.

The fact that you have noticed their attitude and are preoccupied with improving it suggests having a positive dispositional attitude. You want to see the best in people, and you want people to reflect the positive qualities you also exhibit.

But unfortunately, it is not always possible when haters are involved. The best you can do is to focus on:

Hating is a wastage of time and energy. You will accomplish more and enjoy yourself and your life more, while their hateful attitude will prevent them from doing the same.

Lovers Accomplish More; Haters Hate More

Now, this is not just an assumption or an attempt to make you feel better, but the conclusion of another study published in Social Psychology.

The authors correlated the subjects’ dispositional attitudes with their decisions and abilities to develop new skills and enjoy new activities. They found lovers tend to:

At the opposite end, haters are more inclined towards:

However, the latter category does have an advantage. By focusing on a limited number of activities, haters extend their knowledge in that field and become better at their job than lovers who are always curious and willing to learn a bit of everything.

At this point, you probably wish that haters were able to focus on other things, too, and leave you alone. But, unfortunately, psychologists disagree this can happen.

So how can you deal with them without letting their hatred discourage you? As always, the best strategy to defeat “the enemy” is to get to know them.

How To Identify Your Haters? 

Haters are insecure and predictable beings.

You don’t have to befriend haters to get to know them. Haters make it prominent to identify them by understanding their way of acting. John R. Schafer did an impressive job explaining the hater’s psychology back in 2003 through his work: The Seven-Stage Hate Model.

According to Schafer, haters are insecure, and there are two groups of them.

When they look at you, haters either see the same things they hate about themselves or see everything they would like to become but cannot.

Either way, they feel frustrated and insecure, and they will take project their insecurities out on you. According to Schafer, their hatred will most likely follow seven stages.

The 7 Stages Of Hate

Obviously, not all haters are criminals, and psychopaths Schafer was referring to in his work. Their purpose will not be to ruin your life or harm you but to:

Otherwise put, they are too insecure to pursue their own goals. So, instead, they will do everything in their power to prevent you from pursuing your own. They will do this to prove themselves that they are better than you or, at least, you are no better than they are. You obviously do not want to allow that, so what can you do?

How To Deal With Haters And Respond To Them?

Dealing with haters is essential as such negative behavior can affect the external environment of a workplace. However, it’s also imperative to respond to haters tactfully.

Here are some ways through which you can understand the psychology of haters and respond to their tantrums.

1. Identify Their Hate Stage

According to Schafer’s model, you need to identify your haters and the hate stage. If they are at an early stage, consider intervening with appropriate interdiction strategies.

A typical example of doing so would be taking your employer’s issues at work or making it clear in public that you will not tolerate such behavior.

2. Recognize Their Insecurities

Another way to respond to haters is to recognize their behavior that reflects insecurities. Then, penetrate their hate mask and address the insecurities on their face.

You may be able to catch them when they are vulnerable and show them their insecurity is unjustified because they are better than you, or you are even more insecure.

3. Respond With An Emotional Response

In life, you’ll meet many people who won’t be on the same page as you. Whether it’s about starting a new business or indulging yourself in personal development, whatever your reasons might be, there will be people who’ll tell you off and say your reasons aren’t good enough or they don’t matter.

In such cases, it’s always wise to tackle these people by providing them with an emotional response. Emotional responses are deeper than facts. They can help you tackle naysayers because you’re conveying your morals and values to the other person who is more meaningful than any facts or opinions when you reason emotionally.

4. Ignore The Haters

Ignorance is bliss! Unfortunately, if all things failed then ignoring haters is the best strategy.

If you let haters get to you, their hate will torment and discourage you further.

The more you will try to reach out to them and show them your good side, the more insecure they will feel, the more they will want to be like you, and the more they will hate you.

You’ll never understand haters because they are built that way, and even if you try to be on their good books, you’ll only exhaust your mental peace. Eventually, when you start ignoring them, they will too stop spewing hate too.

How To Deal With Social Media Hate Or Trolls?

Social media hate is pervasive and deeply entrenched in the virtual world. Whether you’re a small online business owner or someone who loves creating online content, encountering online trollers is a common disadvantage that comes along with social media.

According to the statistics, 52% of teenagers in the United States have come across hate speech about race on online platforms.

This statistic is concerning considering that excessive use of social media has also increased the rate of depression by 70% in the past 25 years, according to the Royal Society for Public Health.

Here are some ways to take care of social media hate tactfully.

1. Frame A Policy

Some social media platforms allow their users to frame a policy of their own. Therefore, social media policy is a concrete guideline for using social media platforms for the users.

If a hater inflicts uncalled hate on your profile, you can warn them that they are acting against the community guidelines, and it’d be the last time you’d tolerate their hate.

2. Block And Delete

There’s a legit reason behind the “Block” and “Delete” buttons.

They don’t always come to the rescue when you want to avoid your ex but also prevent online haters from spilling their hatred on others unnecessarily.

Even if the community guidelines don’t work, block or delete them.

3. Reply With Sarcasm

There’s no better way to deal with online hate other than sarcasm.

In fact, many big companies resort to sarcasm and humor in dealing with online trollers.

Perhaps the next time you see online hate coming your way, consider diffusing the whole situation with an incredible comeback sprinkled with loads of sarcasm.

4. Show Them Facts

Whenever you engage with a hate comment, it’s best to have some facts in hand so that you can counterattack their hate with those proven facts. Ensure that while engaging with them online, you maintain your stance and only talk with a positive attitude.

5. Take Help Of Your Community

If nothing seems to work out, don’t think twice before asking for help from the community.

If the haters constantly ignore your repeated warnings, bring it to notice in front of everyone online and ask them to report the profile against community violation.

Concluding Thoughts, 

In fact, having some haters is a good thing! It shows you’re doing something constructive in your life.

Focus on your own goals and ignore the existence of haters in your life. Let them choke on their own hatred. Their insecurity and their hatred will cause them to make costly mistakes.

When they do, it is up to them if they learn from those mistakes and move on or cling to their hate and allow it to consume them. Either way, you will be on your way to even more accomplishments, enjoying life next to the people around you.

We’d love to learn more about your strategies for dealing with haters, so do not hesitate to leave a comment or reach out to us via our social media channels.

Stay tuned with us by subscribing to our website, and never miss any new updates!

Key Takeaways On How To Deal With Haters

Understand the psychology and the stages of hate to identify haters

How To Deal With Social Media Hate Or Trolls?

What’s the psychology of haters?

In psychology, hate is directly linked with the following factors:

How to deal with online haters?