Victim mentality, victim complex or victimese is a psychological concept referring to a mindset in which a person, or group of people, tends to recognize or consider themselves a victim of the actions of others. The term is also used in reference to the tendency for blaming one's misfortunes on somebody else's misdeeds, which is also referred to as victimism. It can develop as a defense mechanism to cope with negative life events. Victim mentality can be developed from abuse and situations during childhood through adulthood. Similarly, criminals often engage in victim thinking, believing themselves to be moral and engaging in crime only as a reaction to an immoral world and furthermore feeling that authorities are unfairly singling them out for persecution. This mentality could also be branched from patterns of trauma which could make oneself feel like a victim. Characteristics of the victimhood mindset have been observed at the group level, although not all individual-level traits apply.
Features Victim complex tends to be described as a person's personality trait who embodies their belief in being in constant victimhood and pain from the actions of other people. Although self-pity every now and then is something "normal," as that is one of the key stages of grief, it should be temporary and small compared to the exaggerated feelings of guilt, shame, helplessness, etc. More often than not, people who are complex victims get very easily consumed by depression.
Identifying others as the cause for an undesired situation and denying one's personal responsibility for one's life or circumstances. Attributing negative intentions to the offender. Believing that other people are generally more fortunate. Gaining relief from feeling pity for oneself or receiving sympathy from others. It has been typically characterized by attitudes of pessimism, self-pity, and repressed anger. People with a victim mentality may also:
exhibit a general tendency to perceive a situation realistically but lack an awareness or curiosity about the root of actual powerlessness in a situation display entitlement and selfishness become defensive, even when others try to help avoid taking risks exhibit learned helplessness be self-abasing feel the importance of being seen as a victim by others have the tendency to put others at fault for the outcome of a situation At the individual and collective level, other features of a victim mentality include:
Need for recognition – the desire for individuals to have their victimhood recognized and affirmed by others. This recognition helps reaffirm positive basic assumptions the individual holds about themselves, others, and the world in general. This also implies that offenders recognize their wrongdoing. At a collective level, this can encourage people to have a positive well-being with regard to traumatic events and to encourage conciliatory attitudes in group conflicts. Moral elitism – the perception of the moral superiority of the self and the immorality of the other side, at both individual and group levels. At an individual level, this tends to involve a "black and white" view of morality and the actions of individuals. The individual denies their own aggressiveness and sees the self as weak and persecuted by the morally impure, while the other person is seen as threatening, persecuting, and immoral, preserving the image of a morally pure self. At a collective level, moral elitism means that groups emphasize the harm inflicted on them, while also seeing themselves as morally superior. This also means that individuals see their own violence as justified and moral, while the outgroup's violence is unjustified and morally wrong. Lack of empathy – because individuals are concerned with their own suffering, they tend to be unwilling to divert interest to the suffering of others. They will either ignore the suffering of others or act more selfishly. At the collective level, groups preoccupied with their own victimhood are unwilling to see the outgroup's perspective and show less empathy to their adversaries, while being less likely to accept responsibility for the harm they commit. This results in the group being collectively egoistic. Rumination – victims tend to focus attention on their distress and its causes and consequences rather than solutions. This causes aggression in response to insults or threats and decreases the desire for forgiveness by including a desire for revenge against the perpetrator. Similar dynamics play out at the collective level.
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