This came up in another thread and I found it an interesting enough question that I wanted to discuss it further on its own merit.
Would you agree or disagree that its possible to find someone's behavior objectionable and abhorrent and that these feelings do not stem from hatred?
If you agree then do these feelings stem from fear or not?
I think it is at least theoretically possible that someone might object to the behavior of another without being motivated to object out of malice or fear. In practice however this is usually not the case.
OR is this that the richest thing you've ever heard?
Psychologically it depends on the number of concepts you associate with the person in question. If you associate numerous positive concepts with a person, and one negative concept, then it could be said that you hate the behavior, but not the person (although you still direct hatred at the person).
When researching this sort of phenomenon, we tend to use a test that shows whether you are more inclined to associate negative traits, or positive traits to a person. In our psychological community we have defined hatred as the propensity to automatically associate negative traits with a person.
Now, if your main associated concept of a person is their negative behavior, then it is nearly guaranteed that you will automatically associate negative traits to them. So, from our perspective this is hate. However, if that negative association is tempered with other positive associations, then you are more likely to automatically associate positive traits to the person.
The topic of "hate" is far more complex than this (involving outgroups, ingroups, selevtive attention, cognitive disonance, groupthink, etc...), but I think this gives a fairly basic answer to the question.
Yes, to find such action "abhorrent" most likely stems from hatred. No, it does not necessarily mean you hate the individual person displaying the action. Yes, it does mean you hate a person whom you only associate negative concepts to.
The irony of this is that one can be a complete racist, and still have other-race friends (Archie Bunker being the great popular culture reference to this). Which is why I often chuckle when someone says "I don't hate (insert minority group here), some of my best friends are (insert minority group here)."
