Blamespeak: Can Words Lead to Violence?

Blaming individuals and groups instead of ideas and behavior can be dangerous.

Posted September 30, 2025 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

There appears to be a growing amount of political violence in the United States. At the same time, many political leaders strongly and appropriately encourage a lowering of the political temperature and rhetoric. Can words lead to violence and if so, how does this occur?

Research on polarization indicates that when people in one group talk to themselves a lot, their positions on issues become more extreme. 1 On the other hand, when people with opposing views speak in person with each other, their views tend to become less extreme. 2

Studies of individual and mass shooters have found that they are often on social media before committing their murders and that encouraging language is often exchanged among them. 3 When the speaker is in one’s group—one of "us"—use of inflammatory language appears to be more common and appears to have a more powerful impact.

When words are repeated over and over again, they begin to feel true even if they are exaggerations or not true at all. This is called the illusion of truth effect. 4 When emotional stories are told, the most negative words, the most emotional words, and the most expressive faces are absorbed by the listener. The “peak-end” effect refers to the emotional peaks of a story and the ending words of the story, which tend to be what is absorbed and then amplified by the listener to others as they repeat the story. 5 This is how mobs get energized, in person and on the internet.

In Rwanda in 1994, over 800,000 members of the minority Tutsi ethnic group were slaughtered by the majority Hutu ethnic group primarily with machetes. Why did people who had gotten along for years suddenly turn violent against each other? An International Criminal Court for Rwanda was established to hold people accountable and gave life sentences to two radio journalists and one print journalist. In their sentencing, the judges said: “You were fully aware of the power of words, and you used the radio—the medium of communication with the widest public reach—to disseminate hatred and violence. Without a firearm, machete, or any physical weapon, you caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians.” Yet the court differentiated between “ethnic consciousness,” which is fine to discuss, and “ethnic hatred,” which can lead to violence. 6

The emotional repetition capacity of radio, television, and social media today may be a significant driver of such violence.

Some people have a greater propensity to commit violence than others. For example, studies have suggested that antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) or borderline personality disorder (BPD) may be a predictive factor, as there is a higher incidence of violence among individuals in those cohorts than in the general population, 7 although for those with BPD, violence primarily emerges in domestic violence situations. ASPD traits including lack of remorse, aggressiveness, and risk-taking behavior may fit the profile of many individual and mass shooters. Young adults are showing up more often as the perpetrators of mass shootings in the United States, according to experts. Part of this trend appears to be the support of their social media groups. 8

In the Rwanda example above, it was primarily young men who were glued to the radio and its repetitive messages of hatred for Tutsis. With less moderating life experience and more physical strength, it is not surprising that words more easily translate into violent action when young people are targeted with these repetitive messages.

When do words cross over into violence? The line appears to be when it becomes personal. Discussing ideas and strong political disagreements has always been part of the American commitment to free speech. But when individuals are personally attacked as evil or hateful or the singular cause of all our problems, then the risk of violence goes way up. In civil society, it’s fine to say that another person’s way of thinking or their behavior is undesirable or totally wrong, but it’s dangerous to say that this specific person or group—as people—should be hated or eliminated. With enough repetitions, for the reasons described above, crossing the line from personally hateful words to violence becomes much more likely.

This is why we have the legal system. When people misbehave according to the laws and rules of society, then there are appropriate, proportional consequences. We don’t execute people because of their beliefs or even misbehavior, unless it is extremely violent behavior.

Overcoming Blamespeak

In my book BIFF: Quick Responses to High-Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns, and subsequent books about the BIFF communication method, I've explained that blamespeak has several characteristics: It’s emotionally intense, its very personal, it’s all your fault, it’s out of context, it’s often spread to others to blame you more, you get an intensely negative gut feeling in response to it, and you find yourself compelled to respond in the same way with blamespeak of your own. 9

However, we have learned over more than a decade that any individual can overcome blamespeak and instead learn to communicate by being Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm (BIFF). Fortunately, as human beings we have the ability to learn and overcome barriers.

If we want a civil, peaceful society, we all have to take responsibility for how we individually communicate. We also have to protect ourselves from emotionally repetitive words by those who teach hatred for certain individuals and groups. This means not repeating other people’s hateful words. We can criticize other people’s words, ideas, and behaviors, but when we use words that target people personally, we increase the risk that our words may lead to violence.

Cass Sunstein and Reid Hastie, Wiser: Getting beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2015).
Emily Badger and Kevin Quealy, “These 526 Voters Represent All of America. And They Spent a Weekend Together,” New York Times, October 2, 2019.
Glenn Thrush and Matt Richtel, “A Disturbing New Pattern in Mass Shootings: Young Assailants,” New York Times , June 2, 2022.
Aumyo Hassan and Sarah J. Barber, “The Effects of Repetition Frequency on the Illusory Truth Effect,” Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 6, art. 38 (2021): 1
Golderberg, A., et al, "Amplification in the evaluation of multiple emotional expressions over time," Nature Human Behaviour, July 2022,
United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, “Three Media Leaders Convicted for Genocide,” press release, December 3, 2003.
Collison, Katherine L. and Donald R. Lynam, “Personality Disorders as Predictors of Intimate Partner Violence: A Meta-analysis,” Clinical Psychology Review 88 (2021): 1–2.
See Thrush and Richtel, footnote 3 above.
Bill Eddy, BIFF: Quick Responses to High-Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns. Unhooked Books, 2014.

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Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, is a lawyer, therapist, mediator, and Chief Innovation Officer of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego. He is the author of books including 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life and Our New World of Adult Bullies.

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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.