What Is Victimhood? Its Characteristics, Components And Consequences
We all know someone who constantly plays the victim. It is that person in our family, group of friends or circle of acquaintances who is reminding us, over and over again, that we did something bad to them in the past, even though there are also many good things that we have done for them.
Victimhood is a type of mentality that, at extreme levels, can be considered pathological. Several studies have been carried out to try to address this construct in a more scientific way, and below Let’s look a little more in depth at what they say and what dimensions have been proposed for victimhood
Social life is full of ambiguity For example, it may happen that one day we send a message to our friend, he sees it and, instead of answering us, he doesn’t tell us anything. It can also happen that we walk down the street, we meet a stranger, he looks at us with a disgusted face and we wonder why. These situations can be interpreted in many ways, depending on what our sociocultural context and our own personality characteristics have taught us.
We may think that our friend has not answered us because he is angry with us, or that we bother him. It may also be the case that the stranger who has looked at us with a bad face has been repulsed by us, and cannot help but show us a disapproving grimace. However, the most likely thing is that our friend left us unnoticed by forgetting to answer and the unknown gentleman did not even realize what face he was making or, even, he did not notice our existence.
Most people tend to get over socially ambiguous situations easily, regulating our emotions and knowing that not everything has to mean something bad. However, there are people who tend to see themselves as victims of all kinds of misfortunes, perceiving the world as a terribly hostile and negative environment, and seeing malice in all the actions taken by those people who at some point have done something wrong to them. offense.
Interpersonal victimhood has been defined by Rahav Gabay as the feeling of seeing oneself as a victim, generalizing in many types of relationships As a result, victimization becomes a fundamental element of their individual identity. People who have this mentality tend to manifest a very externalized locus of control, that is, they attribute their “misfortunes” to phenomena that they cannot control, such as fate, (bad) luck or the free will of other people.
The research that has scientifically delved into this construct, mostly developed in the State of Israel, has raised the existence of four dimensions within victimhood:
They have also tried to see how being a victim (victimization) affects the degree of victimization. An important finding has been that, although two phenomena are related, a person who has been the victim of a serious offense, both on a physical level, such as aggression, and on a mental level, such as psychological abuse, does not have to develop a victim mentality. . It is not necessary for a person with a tendency toward victimhood to have been the victim of a major offense in the past
Dimensions of victimhood
As we have mentioned, according to the research carried out by the research groups of Rahav Gabay, Emily Zitek and others, there would be four dimensions within the construct of victimhood.
1. Constant search for recognition of one’s own victimhood
People who score high on this dimension show a constant need for people to know about their suffering whether this is really serious or simply an exaggeration of minor damage.
Generally, when a person suffers some type of offense, they seek support and emotional support in their closest circle. This is done because, after aggression or humiliation, the vision of the world as a just and morally correct place is shattered. To recover it, it is necessary to go to someone who can reassure the victim that her harm has been unjust, and that morally correct people see it as a serious offense.
Furthermore, it is totally normal for a person who has been a victim of an offense to want the perpetrator to pay for his or her mistakes, acknowledging his or her guilt, repenting, and receiving the appropriate punishment. The validation of the harm received and recognition by the offender has been studied in patients seeing that, when the person who has done it recognizes their mistake and the victim’s environment empathizes with them, their recovery process in therapy accelerates.
2. Sense of moral elitism
High scores in the sense of moral elitism imply a greater degree of perceiving oneself as a person of upright and immaculate morality, seeing others as immoral beings. It is common for victimizing people to accuse others of being incorrect, unfair, selfish and immoral people, seeing themselves as superior to them and trying to control them through complaints and reproaches for their behavior.
It has been suggested that moral elitism develops as a defense mechanism against deeply painful feelings, in addition to serving as a way to obtain and enhance a biased positive self-image. Although they may tend to be aggressive people with destructive impulses, People who score high on moral elitism project these traits onto others, and always see themselves as persecuted people vulnerable and morally superior.
3. Lack of empathy for the harm and suffering of others
People who score high on this dimension They are preoccupied with their own victimhood, forgetting that others can also be victims It has been seen that the most victimizing people who have really been victims tend to legitimize their aggressive and selfish behavior with others, ignoring the suffering of others or belittling it.
According to research carried out by Emily Zitek’s group, people with this type of victimhood They believe they have suffered so much that they no longer have the need to respect or feel empathy towards others They are even capable of refusing to help others because they consider that they do not deserve it, which is not a big deal. This has been called “victimhood selfishness.”
4. Constant rumination about past victimization.
It is common for victimized people to constantly ruminate about the offenses they have received, no matter how few and minor they may have been. They enter an endless loop in which they remember what they said, the harm they did, or any unpleasant action instead of thinking or discussing possible solutions to the problem or trying to avoid it.
In addition, they put themselves in the worst case scenario, thinking that it could happen again and they act out how they will respond when it happens. It has been observed that people who ruminate more about the offenses received are less likely to forgive those who hurt them, and more in favor of taking revenge.
Consequences of this mentality
In an interpersonal conflict, all parties involved try to maintain a positive moral self-image That is to say, whether you are a victim or an aggressor, it is normal for everyone to see themselves as the ones who are right. Thus two subjective realities are created.
On the one hand, Aggressors tend to minimize the damage they have done while victims tend to maximize it, seeing in the actions of their offenders something arbitrary, meaningless, immoral and more serious than they are.
Gabay’s group detected three types of biases that occur as a consequence of having a victim mentality: interpretation bias, attribution of harmful behavior and memory bias.
1. Interpretation bias
Interpretation bias has to do with the degree to which the seriousness of the offense is perceived in a social situation It has been seen that the most interpersonally victimizing people see all offenses as authentic personal attacks, no matter how minor they may be. That is, they interpret them in a more exaggerated way.
2. Attribution of harmful behavior
It is a very common bias among people with high interpersonal victimhood attributing harmful intentions to the actions of others, combined with some paranoia That is, they think that the world is going to end up hurting them.
3. Memory bias
It has been seen that people with high victimhood tend to remember more negative events This has been studied experimentally by seeing what type of vocabulary comes to mind in people who score high in this construct when they are presented with different stimuli, both social and neutral.
It was observed that they tended to remember more words that represent behaviors and feelings related to interpersonal harm, such as “betrayal,” “anger,” “disappointment,” and they remembered negative emotions more easily.
Causes of victimhood
The factors behind a person being more of a victim are several. As we have mentioned, having been the victim of an offense does not always mean ending up having a victim mentality, nor the other way around. What has been seen is that these two phenomena could be related and, if they occur together, would increase victimizing behaviors even more
It has been seen that a factor that could be behind developing a victim mentality is the possess an anxious personality These types of people tend to be very insecure and seek approval and validation from others. When they continually seek reaffirmation, they are full of doubts about their own social value, so the slightest unpleasant act that others do to them is perceived as a personal attack and their emotional stability, which is already low, crumbles.
