The Psychology of Victim Blaming

Yesterday I posted a screenshot on my X/Twitter account of a message I said to a person I’ve known for a long time, which essentially stated how he made me feel when he bit me on the previous night. I set a boundary with him that I do not accept this behaviour, or any other type of physical abuse of any kind (posted below). This person is a person I hold near and dear to my heart and so this action surprised me and also worried me that escalation could occur had I not address it.

However, the interesting part to me was there were two people who commented on this post, asking why I hadn’t addressed it in the moment. I thought this was an interesting question, considering that the first reaction was curiousity as to why I didn’t do something right away instead of expressing outrage at the other person’s actions.

Now, I’m not offended or hurt by this because this granted me the opportunity to reflect on why this was so and also to share my thought process in a clear way. I also reflected on my response and I was at first worried about sounding too nice in my initial message (and yet my response to the question of why I didn’t address the bite in the moment also sounded too nice - and yet held absolute truth - which, looking back, made me feel like I had some culpability in the event). Just to be clear here, my point is not to paint myself as a victim or shame those who asked the question but rather to share my own personal reflection about what possibly inspired people to focus on what I could have done better instead of focusing on how the person biting me was wrong.

“It is not the victim’s fault or responsibility to fix the situation, it is the abuser’s choice” - Penn State University

Victim Blaming

We are going to switch gears here and talk about victim blaming. With sexual assaults, and other types of abuse, sometimes victims get blamed or not believed for the assault.

More specifically in the sex industry, historically if a sex worker is murdered it is seen as less of a priority to society and the police force to pour resources into solving these crimes compared to if people of the general public are at risk of attacks. As society evolves, more and more research suggests that serial killers start with sex workers, and then move onto people who are not associated with the sex industry and, therefore, it can be argued that this has now created urgency compared to previous decades. But even when you see the comments, some people will victim blame. “She deserves it because she’s a sex worker”, “she put herself in a dangerous situation” and so on and so forth.

I became interested in the psychology behind the victim blaming. Why has our society developed in such a way that perpetrators can be protected and victims can be blamed? What is the evolutionary advantage (or disadvantage) of this conceptualization?

Fundamental Attribution Error

The fundamental attribution error is a cognitive bias that weighs a situation based on underemphasizing environmental factors and overemphasizing disproportional or personality factors. In the case of victim blaming, this type of cognitive error seems to fit. For example, some people will focus on what the victim did wrong (what were they wearing, what type of situation did they put themselves in) instead of attributing the blame to environmental factors (the perpetrator’s personal choice who decided to inflict assault onto the victim).

With the fundamental attribution error, this leaves little room for empathy. Since the environment has little weight on the unfolding of the situation, I argue that people who hold this type of cognitive bias can see the world as a safe place where bad things don’t happen unless the individual “allows” it to. To me, and perhaps to you, this may sound counterintuitive and illogical. Why does this type of cognitive bias happen so frequently, specifically with victim blaming?

Positive Assumptive Worldview

I believe that, overall, people tend to hold a positive assumptive worldview which is where we see the world is safe and that good things (not bad things) happen to good people.

I mean, can we blame people for that? Imagine, living in a reality where we believed everything was dangerous. How terrifying would the world can seem, and how much would this negatively affect our quality of life?

Not surprising, when we experience a shattered worldview (which typically happens with PTSD that can occur from assaults), this can exasperate our anxiety, make us fearful of the world and severely affect a person’s quality of life (Edmondson et al., 2011). People who hold a shattered worldview will feel out of control of the situation, believing that they will reexperience the terror of the assault or face impending death that cannot be avoided (Edmondson et al., 2011).

It can be argued that people who victim blame may also hold a positive assumptive worldview. “How can bad things like rape and murder happen in our small town (or our city)”? I hear this all the time - on the news, on true crime documentaries. We don’t want to believe it happens, but the reality is that it can - and it does.

Self Preservation & Selfishness

Other reasons, according to an article written by Juliana Breines in Psychology Today, are:

1. People may want to morally distance themselves from the victim as they may hold a belief that the victims are “contaminated”

2. They may empathize more with the perpetrators due to shared characteristics, such as race and culture

3. Dehumanizing the victim to see them as less capable of suffering can alleviate their own anxieties and trauma that they may experience around learning about the event

4. Those blaming may have dark personality traits themselves

As we can see, many of the reasons around victim blaming centre around selfishness and self preservation. None of these reasons around victim blaming include practicing empathy.

When people want to believe that the world is just, and that bad things won’t happen to them, empathy can suffer.” -The Atlantic

The Role of Empathy

Blaming the victim inspires self preservation and protects our positive assumptive worldview. Holding this worldview can reassure ourselves that the world is a safe place and nothing bad will ever happen to us. It allows us to see through rose coloured glasses and feel more in control of our lives and external factors.

However, this doesn’t focus on reality that sometimes bad things can happen, may put us more at risk for assaults by letting our guard down and sacrifices the victim’s wellbeing for our own.

A study conducted by Lerner & Simmons interestingly found that when a person was powerless to change the fate of the victim being shocked again by electricity, they exercised less empathy toward the person who was being shocked by researchers.

Aderman, Brehm & Katz took it one step further asking how participants would feel if they were the ones being shocked and, not surprisingly, this inspired an empathic reactions and the participants were less likely to blame the victim when they put themselves in their shoes.

Another study found that positive worldviews and hostile sexism predicted less empathy towards victims of sexual assault whereas empathy was a better predictor of positive attitudes towards victims.

Overall, I believe a person’s ability to empathize with a victim is a better indicator of whether the person will choose to blame the victim. I believe, to the most extreme, that this can be another indicator of whether narcissistic, sociopathic or psychopathic traits are present within an individual as their worldview trumps empathy towards the person who has been victimized.

If a person unknowingly practicing this kind of perception on the world, it doesn’t always mean they have narcissistic or sociopathic/psychopathic traits, but could be victim blaming outside of their own self awareness. I think it is important to be aware of seeing the world through rose coloured glasses and, instead, recognize the grey areas of the world. Not everything is good 100% of the time but not everything is bad or dangerous either. Exercise critical thinking and self awareness - always.