Study Significance
The authors argue that perceived victimhood is widely discussed in journalism and punditry but understudied in empirical social science, so they develop a theory and use nationally‑representative survey data plus an experiment to document two distinct manifestations of political victimhood and their consequences.
Measurement and Comparison Design
The study distinguishes two manifestations of perceived victimhood: an egocentric form focused on perceptions of one’s own victimhood, and a system‑directed form that blames “the system”; these were measured using items included in the authors’ nationally representative survey, and the paper compares responses across partisan, ideological, and sociodemographic groups to show that both forms cut across those categories.
In addition to observational comparisons across demographic, partisan, and ideological subgroups, the authors report an experiment that manipulated candidate rhetoric to test whether messaging can induce feelings of victimhood and thereby alter subsequent attitudes and behavior.
Main Findings from Survey and Experiment
Both egocentric and system‑directed victimhood appear across partisan, ideological, and sociodemographic groups rather than being confined to actual victims or losing partisans, and these victimhood measures relate to candidate support and various racial attitudes while remaining distinct from constructs like collective narcissism, system justification, and relative deprivation.
The experiment shows that some forms of candidate rhetoric can increase supporters’ feelings of victimhood, which in turn affect subsequent attitudes and behavior.
Authors' Interpretation and Limits
The authors interpret perceived victimhood as a distinct psychological construct with political consequences, emphasize that it is not limited to particular partisan or demographic groups, and qualify conclusions by noting they measured two specific manifestations and compared victimhood to related constructs rather than claiming complete conceptual overlap.
