December 14, 2020
When sociologists detailed the rise of “victimhood culture” several years ago, they were vilified for triggering the people most likely to see victimization in everything.
Now researchers at American and Israeli universities claim to have identified perpetual victimhood as a “novel personality trait” that they refer to as “Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood.”
Writing in
Personality and Individual Differences, they say the trait is marked by “an enduring feeling that the self is a victim across different kinds of interpersonal relationships.” The findings “suggest that victimhood is a stable and meaningful personality tendency,” according to the article abstract.
The authors are Rahav Gabay and Arie Nadler in Tel Aviv University’s School of Psychological Sciences, Boaz Hameiri in the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication and TAU’s Evens Program in Conflict Resolution and Mediation, and Tammy Rubel-Lifs