In a society where "virtuous victimhood signaling" is socially rewarded, psychopaths will inevitably abuse the system to reap the benefits of such signaling. This is unfortunate because it makes it more difficult to discern real victimhood from manipulative opportunists.
[1] Ekin Ok and her colleagues from "The Immorality Lab” at UBC found that 34% and 24% of their sample reported that “at some point in their lives, they have pretended to be hurt or harmed, physically or psychologically, to increase the chances of getting something they wanted”.
[2] In a new paper in JPSP, Ok and her colleagues found that those who score higher in Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy were more likely to be frequent “virtuous victim signalers” as a “resource extraction strategy”: scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/upl…
[3] Importantly, they controlled for demographic and socioeconomic variables that are commonly associated with victimization in Western societies. Critically, they acknowledge that many people emit the virtuous victim signal because they are actually victims in need of help.
[4] Their findings focus an important spotlight on the fact that virtuous victimhood signaling can be a highly effective social influence tool and can be used as a tactic for self-advancement and goal pursuit, and can be exploited by those with malevolent intentions.
[5] The researchers note that "well-meaning people might allocate their material and social resources to those who are neither victims nor virtuous, which necessarily diverts resources from those who are legitimately in need.”
[7] It is perfectly reasonable and compassionate to want to help people who show distress or disadvantage, and I hope humanity doesn’t lose that impulse. But this paper shows that some people aren't good-faith actors in this "victimhood space".
Thanks to @jayvanbavel for bringing this paper to my attention.
Ekin Ok runs "The Immorality Lab" at UBC where their research focuses on the Seven Deadly Sins. That's pretty badass, I have to say. blogs.ubc.ca/immoralitylab/…
