12 Things Everyone Should Know About the Psychology of Victimhood
The strange allure of being wronged
“Victims have never been in short supply in the world, but the rush to identify oneself as a victim is rather a new feature of modern life.”
-Joseph Epstein, The Joys of Victimhood (1989)
Victimhood has always had a certain moral cachet. In recent years, however, it’s become one of the most powerful currencies in the social marketplace. Whereas people once sought status through highlighting their achievements, today they often do so by broadcasting their wounds.
The philosopher Bertrand Russell saw it coming. In a 1943 essay titled The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed, he warned of a growing tendency to see victimhood not just as a reason for sympathy, but as a badge of moral superiority. Since then, the trend has only accelerated.
Take Rachel Dolezal, the White woman who presented herself as Black and rose to a leadership position in the NAACP before her true ancestry was revealed. Or recall the actor Jussie Smollett, who staged a hate crime against himself by hiring two acquaintances to beat him up. These are baffling cases - until we recognize the powerful incentive, in today’s culture, of being a victim.
This isn’t to deny, of course, the reality of suffering or oppression. There are genuine victims in the world, and they deserve our compassion and support. However, when victim status becomes a path to prestige or power, it creates an unfortunate incentive for people to take on the victim role - sometimes unwittingly, sometimes strategically.
In this installment of the “12 Things Everyone Should Know” series, we’ll explore what the latest psychological research reveals about victimhood: how it distorts perception, encourages bad behavior, and poisons intergroup relations.
You can access the full collection of “12 Things Everyone Should Know” posts here.
1. Victimhood as a Personality Trait
Psychologists have identified a personality trait they call the Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV). It reflects a chronic sense of being wronged, and includes four key components:
Need for recognition - the desire to have one’s suffering acknowledged, validated, and empathized with
Moral elitism - a belief in one’s moral superiority, and the moral depravity of one’s opponents
Lack of empathy - obliviousness to other people’s suffering
Rumination - a tendency to obsess over problems, unpleasant experiences, and perceived slights
2. Victim Signaling as a Manipulation Tactic
Not every claim of victimhood is genuine. People with manipulative, narcissistic, or psychopathic tendencies sometimes weaponize victimhood: They exaggerate harm, fabricate grievances, and leverage sympathy to exploit others’ better nature. As psychologist Adam Grant put it: “Constantly claiming to be a victim is not a sign of virtue. It’s a strategy for narcissists and psychopaths to get ahead.”
