Competitive Victimhood Research Articles

Fostering Social Cohesion in Post‐Conflict Societies: The Power of Normative Apologies in Reducing Competitive Victimhood and Enhancing Reconciliation and Intergroup Negotiation

ABSTRACTThe present research investigated whether a normative outgroup apology enhances conciliatory attitudes (i.e., willingness for intergroup contact and feelings of peace) and intergroup negotiations while reducing competitive victimhood. In three experiments (N = 855) conducted in the post‐conflict context of Kosovo, we manipulated the normative apology by informing participants that the majority of outgroup members (i.e., Serbs) apologized for the Kosovo war. We compared this normative apology condition with an institutional apology, in which a Serbian representative apologized for the Kosovo war on behalf of the Serbian government (in all experiments), and a control (i.e., baseline) condition in which no apology‐related information was presented (Experiments 1 and 2). Overall, the results showed that participants in the normative apology condition reported greater willingness for contact with outgroup members, increased feelings of peace, greater support for intergroup negotiations, and reduced competitive victimhood compared to participants in other conditions. In addition, Experiment 3 revealed that outgroup humanization mediated the effect of normative apology on conciliatory attitudes, intergroup negotiations and competitive victimhood. In sum, these findings showed that normative apologies play a critical role in improving intergroup relations and reducing conflict‐related tensions.

Politicising Space, (In)visibilising Grief: Pandemic commemoration and the UK’s “National COVID Memorial Wall”

This article contributes to knowledge on the politics of national commemoration in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic by exploring the case of the United Kingdom (UK) and the ‘National COVID Memorial Wall’ in its material and digital manifestations. Questioning how the Wall functions socially and politically as a site of ‘national’ COVID-19 commemoration and using a combination of participatory in person and digital ethnographies, this article demonstrates how the Wall at once politicises public space while simultaneously serving to reinforce existing inequalities and patterns of (in)visibility while inadvertently overing the pandemic through its timing. While appraising the politics and space of the Wall in London and its digital version, this article highlights how inequalities exacerbated through the pandemic have (mis)informed and are reflected in the physical and virtual construction of the self-proclaimed ‘national’ COVID-19 memorial. Within a context defined by competitive victimhood and commemorative crowding which come to define ‘post’-pandemic society and make for fraught commemorative processes that ought to be approached by Governments’ with specific sensitivity, this article argues that the Wall politicises and opens up space within which previously contained grief becomes visible and felt while being limited in its capacity to make particular victims of the pandemic visible and thus to amplify marginalised and contained voices and grief.

A mixed-methods approach to understand victimization discourses by opposing feminist sub-groups on social media.

Opposing social movements are groups that have conflicting objectives on a shared social justice issue. To maximize the probability of their movement's success, groups can strategically portray their group in a favourable manner while discrediting their opposition. One such approach involves the construction of victimization discourses. In this research, we combined topic modelling and critical discursive psychology to explore how opposing groups within the feminist movement used victimization as a lens to understand their movements in relation to transgender women. We compiled a dataset of over 40,000 tweets from 14 UK-based feminist accounts that included transgender women as women (the pro-inclusion group) and 13 accounts, that excluded transgender women (the anti-inclusion group). Our results revealed differences in how victimization was employed by the opposing movements: pro-inclusion groups drew on repertoires that created a sense of shared victimhood between cisgender women and transgender women, while anti-inclusion groups invoked a competitive victimhood repertoire. Both groups also challenged and delegitimised their oppositions' constructions of feminism and victimhood. These findings add to our understanding of the communication strategies used by opposing movements to achieve their mobilization goals.

성차별주의와 피해자 의식이 여성정책에 대한 인식에 미치는 영향: 경쟁적 피해자 의식의 매개효과를 중심으로*

성차별주의와 피해자 의식이 여성정책에 대한 인식에 미치는 영향: 경쟁적 피해자 의식의 매개효과를 중심으로*

Who counts? Anti-antisemitism and the racial politics of emotion

This article focuses on the rise of anti-antisemitic discourse in Britain over the past fifteen years. It explores the relationship between the increasingly emotional tone of public discourse in Britain and other western countries and the miring of anti-antisemitism in dynamics of competitive victimhood and ethnic antagonism. The development of this dynamic is traced from the bitter arguments over the representation and reporting of the Palestine/Israel conflict at the time of the Israeli ground assault in the Gaza Strip in early 2009 – with special attention to Caryl Churchill’s short play Seven Jewish Children – through to recent anti-antisemitic interventions such as David Baddiel’s bestselling polemic Jews Don’t Count (2021) and Jonathan Freedland’s verbatim play recently staged at London’s Royal Court Theatre (2022). These interventions, the article shows, call for the ‘normal’ treatment of anti-Jewish prejudice while simultaneously appealing on exceptionalist grounds for public sympathy with Jewish perceptions of antisemitism. The exceptional moral authority widely accorded to anti-antisemitism has made the cause an attractive one for those who resent what they believe to be the unwarranted priority accorded to non-white victimhood. Various forms of anti-antisemitism, such as Baddiel’s, have thus become front-line arguments in shrill culture-war tussles suffused with intellectual confusion and racially tinged rhetorical combat. This racialization, politicization and emotionalization of anti-antisemitism has reached new heights, the article concludes, following the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023.

The shadow of war: Parental competitive victimhood and children's contact intentions in two post‐accord societies

AbstractThe effects of political violence are felt across generations; for example, extent of parental competitive victimhood (feeling that one's ingroup was relatively more victimised during the conflict) predicts adolescent's intergroup discrimination. We extend that research to children, born a generation after the height of violence. Participants were 223 family dyads with children aged 7–11 (M = 9.05, SD = 1.30; 52.4% female): Croatia (n = 82) and Republic of North Macedonia (RNM: n = 141), equally split by group status (i.e., Croatia: Croats/Serbs; RNM: Macedonian/Albanian). Parents reported on competitive victimhood while children reported on intergroup contact intentions (e.g., shared education initiatives). Moderation analysis across sites found a significant status by competitive victimhood interaction; increased parental competitive victimhood was associated with decreased contact intentions among minority, but not majority, children. We review site‐specific findings in relation to their historical context, concluding with the implications for shared education, reconciliation and peacebuilding.

In the Shadow of Two Monuments: Local Battlefields of Politics of History in Hungary and Poland

ABSTRACT The politics of history occupies an important place on the agenda of the current right-wing populist governments of Hungary and Poland. These countries have a lot in common in terms of state-level Holocaust distortion and whitewashing of difficult historical issues. This paper aims at investigating these national tendencies through a local ‘lens’ by studying the controversies around the Turul statue in the 12th district of Budapest (2005) and the monument of Jan Maletka erected at the Treblinka railway station (2021). Both monuments were established in places directly related to the local history of Jewish suffering during World War II and are symbolic of the various aspects of the Holocaust. Furthermore, both can be seen and interpreted as specific examples of the ‘de-Judaization of the Holocaust,’ manifestations of competitive victimhood, and a way of hiding the problem of complicity in the Holocaust.

The Victimizing Effects of Conspiracy Beliefs

Abstract: Victimhood has been linked to conspiracy beliefs in various contexts. However, the causal relationship between these constructs remains unclear. Following previous work, conspiracy beliefs could be described as victimized beliefs that are consequences of perceiving one’s ingroup as especially suffering from a situation (i.e., exclusive forms of collective victimhood, comprising competitive victimhood). However, in the absence of causal examination, it might also be that conspiracy beliefs are victimizing beliefs that increase perceptions of victimhood. In Studies 1 and 2, which experimentally tested the widespread victimized beliefs interpretation ( Ntotal = 730), induced exclusive victimhood increased neither specific nor generic conspiracy beliefs. In Study 3 ( N = 335), I tested the reversed causal relations and found that exposure to specific or generic conspiracy theories in a fictitious society increased neither individual nor collective forms of victimhood. However, in Study 4 ( N = 465), exposure to a specific conspiracy theory about a real-world conflict, compared to a generic conspiracy theory, increased exclusive forms of collective victimhood. By contrast, individual-level victimhood about systemic issues increased in both conspiratorial conditions. The goal of Study 5 ( N = 561) was to distinguish the victimizing effects of exposure to a specific conspiracy theory from those of an intergroup conflict situation. Exposure to a conspiracy theory and to an intergroup conflict increased exclusive victimhood to the same extent, but the conspiracy condition again triggered more individual-level victimhood. Together, these results document that conspiracy beliefs have a self-oriented victimizing effect and that it is crucial to account for intergroup conflicts when studying the link between these beliefs and collective-level victimhood. Victimizing one’s status through conspiracy allegations might seek to gain advantages in crisis situations.

Unveiling Gender Power Dynamics in Chinese Digital Discourse: A Case Study of the Discourse of Mutual Accusations in Allegations of Sexual Harassment

This study stems from a case involving a prominent Chinese internet celebrity whose account suspension followed her sexual harassment allegation. Subsequent online discussions on Weibo saw both the accuser and accused strategically presenting themselves as victims using text, imagery, and evidence, while official statements and public evaluations added complexity to the discourse. Employing the MCDA approach, the research analyzed data from Weibo posts under the ‘XHJ incident’ hashtag, amounting to a total of 23,569 outcomes. This analysis delves comprehensively into competitive and collective victimhood, strategic anonymization, and challenges faced by female accusers in public discourse. The case study shows that competitive victimhood in digital contexts intersects with gendered narratives, extending to construct collective victimhood within intricate power dynamics and inadvertently oversimplifying nuanced experiences of sexual harassment through anonymization and functionalization strategies. Furthermore, it provides insights into challenges encountered by female accusers in the public discourse, including perpetuated doubt about women's credibility and intentions, contributing to silencing and disempowerment.

Political Responses to Black Lives Matter in Education

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, teachers and organizations have tried to better prepare other teachers and all students to reckon with the movement in the classroom. In reaction to new pedagogical tools and practices developed by teachers, teachers’ unions, and teachers’ organizations, new policies have come about in state legislatures in 2021 and 2022 to limit education on racism and related topics. This paper reviews the current literature on how teachers and organizations have developed new pedagogical tools and strategies in response to BLM. It also includes a content analysis of thirty-nine legislative documents presented in 2021 and 2022, as well as a case study of Arizona and South Dakota, to study how states responded to the BLM movement and the efforts of educators who sought to reckon with it through critical pedagogy. This paper engages literature on social movements to observe that while the effects of BLM on relationships between educators and organizations have been largely positive, the movement’s macro-level effects in the wider political climate have been of a negative, more anti-social nature. Furthermore, one can observe how “Critical Race Theory” has been mobilized in a discourse that can be characterized as “competitive victimhood,” serving as a catch-all for concepts related to equity, diversity, inclusion, and other “threatening” ideas. This paper concludes that the slew of state-level legislation in the realm of public education in 2021 and 2022 is a response to the ideas advanced in the BLM movement, and the repetitive nature of the documents suggests organization by right-wing think tanks.

Race, Prejudice and Support for Racial Justice Countermovements: The Case of “Blue Lives Matter”

In this article, we develop and test three propositions related to the status of a primary counterpoint of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement—“Blue Lives Matter” (BlueLM). Employing correlational and causal analyses on a wide array of data, including public opinion, news and social media, internet searches, and merchandise sales, our findings are threefold: first, we offer evidence that Whiteness is associated with attitudinal and behavioral indicators of support for BlueLM; second, we present evidence that support for BlueLM is systematically linked to White racial prejudice; and third, we demonstrate that BlueLM activity is caused by BLM protest following a high-profile police killing of a Black man, which comports with the conceptualization of BlueLM as engaging in a process of “competitive victimhood” against BLM. Together, these findings suggest that BlueLM is a new incarnation of an ongoing history of White countermobilization against organized Black claims-making activity.

A Brief History of Jewish Victimhood Identity

Abstract: One key obstacle in the quest for Israel-Palestine reconciliation is each nation’s firm belief that it is the victim of the other’s cruel and immoral behavior. This competitive victimhood suppresses empathy and fosters a sense of powerlessness. This study examines the historical and theological roots of Jewish victimhood identity and offers historical explanations as to why it persists even in the face of the twentieth century “Jewish emergence from powerlessness” (the establishment of Israel). Based on this analysis, practical suggestions are offered for escaping victimhood identity in order to make reconciliation possible.

Exploring inclusive victimhood narratives: the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina

Narratives are essential tools for communicating thoughts about competitive and inclusive victimhood socially and politically. In reconciliation processes, promoting narratives of inclusive victimhood (an understanding that ‘we all suffered together’) has been suggested as one way to overcome competitive victimhood (the idea that one ethnoreligious group or nation is the sole or primary victim in a conflict or war). However, the notion of inclusive victimhood remains understudied in post-war contexts in which exposure to violence was relatively imbalanced between former adversaries. This article traces the potential narrative variation from competitive to inclusive victimhood in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina. It draws on (1) the competitive victimhood typology as an analytical tool and (2) a mapping of narrative sites as a methodological tool for tracing collective victimhood. The article scrutinises less competitive and inclusive accounts of victimhood identities in Bosnia-Herzegovina by examining the narratives that recognise outgroup victimhood and acknowledge ingroup responsibility for harmdoing. It suggests that there is potential for peaceful coexistence realised through the narrative of shared suffering, especially in post-war contexts where the exposure to violence was not entirely unidirectional. However, shared responsibility is less likely to be observed when the exposure to violence was highly asymmetrical.

Influence and mechanisms of common ingroup identity on competitive victimhood in doctor-patient relationships

Influence and mechanisms of common ingroup identity on competitive victimhood in doctor-patient relationships

Trauma drama: The trouble with competitive victimhood

Writing a college-application essay has become a rite of passage for high-school seniors in the United States, one whose importance has expanded over time due to an increasingly competitive admissions process. Various commentators have noted the disturbing evolution of these essays over the years, with an ever-greater emphasis placed on obstacles overcome and traumas survived. How have we gotten to the point where college-application essays are all too frequently competitive-victimhood displays? Colleges have an understandable interest in the disadvantages their applicants may have suffered, but this interest – and the awareness of it among both applicants and their advisors – has led to a ‘race to the bottom’: in order to thrive (or even survive) in a particular competitive context, participants are forced to continuously lower relevant standards in a game of one-upmanship. With college essays, the competition is among high-school seniors for admission, the one-upmanship is an ever-escalating effort to persuade admission committees of one’s greater disadvantage, and the relevant standards being lowered are honesty, privacy, and dignity – or so I shall argue. As we will see, this particular race to the bottom imposes unequal costs on certain groups and has implications stretching well beyond collegiate admissions.

Exclusive victimhood, higher ethnic and lower national identities predict less support for reconciliation among native and Chinese Indonesians through mutual prejudice

Although the colonial era in Indonesia has ended, the legacy of conflict persists. Current conflicts between native and Chinese Indonesians has a colonial underpinning as well. The Dutch classified Chinese Indonesians as middle class, having higher status than natives which changed in the post-colonial era. This classification and the consequent status changes created competitive victimhood beliefs among both groups and impacted each other’s perception, which evolved into stereotypes and persisting conflicts. This paper is based on an online survey study conducted among native and Chinese Indonesians (N = 656) who are divided by ethnicity, religion, language, and their different histories of collective victimhood but united by being part of the Indonesian nation. Using structural equation modeling, we hypothesized and found that exclusive victimhood and ethnic identity predicted higher, whereas Indonesian national identity predicted lower prejudice, and in turn, higher prejudice predicted lower support for reconciliation. These findings have theoretical implications for research on social identity and collective victimhood and practical consequences for understanding intergroup relations in multi-ethnic post-colonial contexts.

Can Debunked Conspiracy Theories Change Radicalized Views? Evidence from Racial Prejudice and Anti-China Sentiment Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.

With the advent of the ‘age of conspiracism’, the harmfulness of conspiratorial narratives and mindsets on individuals’ mentalities, on social relations, and on democracy, has been widely researched by political scientists and psychologists. One known negative effect of conspiracy theories is the escalation toward political radicalism. This study goes beyond the exploration of mechanisms underpinning the relationship between conspiracy theory and radicalization to focus on possible approaches to mitigating them. This study sheds light on the role of counter-conspiracy approaches in the process of deradicalization, adopting the case study of anti-China sentiment and racial prejudice amid the Covid-19 pandemic, through conducting an experiment (N = 300). The results suggest that, during critical events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, exposure to countermeasures to conspiracist information can reduce individual acceptance of radicalism. We investigated two methods of countering conspiracy theory, and found that: (1) a content-targeted ‘inoculation’ approach to countering conspiracy theory can prevent the intensification of radicalization, but does not produce a significant deradicalization effect; and (2) an audience-focused ‘disenchantment’ method can enable cognitive deradicalization, effectively reducing the perception of competitive victimhood, and of real and symbolic threats. This study is one of the first attempts to address causality between deradicalization and countermeasures to conspiracy theories in the US-China relations.

We cannot empathize with what we do not recognize: Perceptions of structural versus interpersonal racism in South Africa.

Recent research suggests holding a structural, rather than interpersonal, understanding of racism is associated with greater impetus to address racial disparities. We believe greater acknowledgment of structural racism also functions to mitigate against empathic failures in response to structural injustices. Given South Africa’s situatedness as a country characterized by historical racialized oppression and continuing unjust legacies, it is appropriate to examine these ideas there. Across three studies, we tested the hypotheses that members of advantaged groups’ perspective taking and empathic concern may be compromised in response to people challenging the unequal status quo, and that a priori perceptions about the impact of structural (vs interpersonal) racism may mitigate or exacerbate such empathic failures. In Study 1, a national sample of White South Africans (n = 195) endorsed perceptions of interpersonal racism more readily than perceptions of structural racism, and expressed high levels of competitive victimhood for perceived anti-White structural racism. Studies 2 (n = 138) and 3 (n = 85) showed that White participants at a historically White university responded with impaired perspective taking and intergroup empathy bias in response to people challenging structural disparities. Finally, reduced recognition of continuing structural racism predicted greater intergroup empathy bias, which, in turn, was associated with reduced willingness to engage in intergroup discussions about past harm (Study 3). We propose that greater acknowledgment of structural racism is necessary not only to surmount intergroup empathic failures, but also to transcend the socioeconomically unequal legacies of apartheid and beyond.

Narrative nudges to peace in protracted conflict: karabakh conflict as a case study

Recent research in narrative psychology provides insights into the dynamics of collective memories and group identities and how they are exploited by populist and nationalist forces for instigating intergroup conflict. In particular, narrative approach to conflict is important in this regard. In one key way, this approach considers conflicts as competing stories and conflict resolution as narrative transformation and the creation of a common (shared) narrative. In this regard, two questions are of particular concern: 1) What kinds of narratives are conducive to reconciliation between adversaries? 2) Which strategies for dealing with narratives found in intergroup conflicts are effective? As a way of addressing these questions we have developed a theoretical model of narrative intervention which was empirically examined at the context of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh. These studies over the two decades have used different perspectives that enable us to identify “common suffering” type of narrative as a way of eliciting positive implicit attitudes and empathy among the conflicting parties. The research has also identified two psychological constructs - “painful collective memory” and “competitive victimhood”, which are often employed by political forces who are not interested in peace and reconciliation in the region.

'You don't compare horrors, you just don't do that': Examining assumptions and extending the scope of comparative victim beliefs.

Social psychological research on collective victimhood has often focused on comparisons between the ingroup's and outgroups' collective victimization (i.e. comparative victim beliefs such as competitive victimhood or inclusive victim beliefs). This qualitative study examines how people in different contexts of collective victimization and its aftermath make sense of items commonly used to assess comparative victim beliefs, and how they extend or challenge these constructs and their underlying assumptions. We used thematic analysis to analyse eight focus group discussions among four minority groups in the United States with historical or more recent experiences of collective victimization (Armenian Americans, Burundian refugees, Jewish Americans and Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugees). Findings extend commonly assessed comparative victim beliefs and reveal participants' critical perspectives on these constructs. The findings also highlight the dialectical structure of collective victim beliefs: Participants not only endorsed but also rejected comparative victim beliefs, and relatedly described both ingroup power and outgroup power in the context of their group's victimization. These findings extend existing social psychological literature on comparative victim beliefs and intergroup relations.