The present research investigates this Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV), which we define as an ongoing feeling that the self is a victim, which is generalized across many kinds of relationships. People who have a higher tendency for interpersonal victimhood feel victimized more often, more intensely, and for longer durations in interpersonal relations than do those who have a lower such tendency. Based on research on victimhood in interpersonal and intergroup relations, we present a conceptualization of TIV, introduce a valid and reliable measure, and examine its cognitive, emotional, and behavioral consequences.
. . .anxious attachment is associated with a combination of being unable to regulate hurt feelings, and being very sensitive to others’ responses, and with an ambivalent perception of others that involves anticipating rejection or abandonment, while depending on others as a source of self-esteem and self-worth (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016). Thus, anxious attachment should be positively associated with TIV.
This is a study that is dubious yet appealing. It is appealing because it reduces the cry-bullies of the Woke movement to a personality type. It is dubious because it reduces a political orientation to a personality type. It is dubious because these sorts of psychological studies are not reliable.
But if you could test for this sort of personality, I would recommend not hiring anyone like this, regardless of their political orientation.
I worked at Whole Foods in New Orleans in the late 80’s (after graduating Swarthmore), and took management training at the headquarters in Austin.
The main point that they made over and over was “don’t hire people who feel like victims!”
They said: you will never be able to convince or teach someone out of their negativity.
I have since been able to confirm this with my own experience countless times.
More came back… they said that it is impossible to show a victim, using logic, that they are not a victim. The victim will always be able to prove, logically, that they are in fact a victim. You can’t win.
“It’s not my fault I have a thin employment record. I’m a victim because cause people don’t want to hire me.” – “Well, I’m certainly not going to hire you so long as you see yourself as a victim.” – “See!”
Fate, which foresaw
How frivolous a baby man would be—
By what distractions he would be possess’d,
How he would pour himself in every strife,
And well-nigh change his own identity—
That it might keep from his capricious play
His genuine self…
-Matthew Arnold
Personality psychology has not had such a big association with the replication crisis. Mostly because it’s making claims that are weak, but internally consistent, and backed by math.
The claims are that you can measure personality along a number of axis. The counter claim tends to be you are just measuring something else, and are model already accounts for it. This is what happened to EQ, it replicates it’s just not a meaningful category. That being said, it’s a little like making an index for economic forecasting, it may track GDP very closely, except when it doesn’t, which makes it useful. Average heritability for OCEAN model elements is about 50%, so culture has a big impact on expression. There are other models and sub index’s all have their uses, it’s not clear that a right answer is possible, but all the models are very useful.
Anxious attachment is very highly correlated with being high in Neuroticism. So my guess is that TIV, isn’t necessarily meaningful. However, N is made up of a bunch of correlated subcategories, TIV, is likely correlated to a sub-set of categories that are all highly correlated. Useful measure, but it’s kind of like an economic index that correlates with GDP with .8 r.
Since culture has a 50% effect on these measures, you can see how a society can make them much worse. This is the problem us my fellow gen Xers have with the young at work, they’ve been trained to be less resilient. It’s really disconcerting, they are unhealthy in a way I want to avoid in my kids.
Is it just me or does this resemble “poppy is a soporific because it has dormitive virtue”?
Incidentally, this article about using noisy proxies for “controlling” for common factors in statistical studies is highly relevant to personality psychology among many other fields. Turns out that controlling with moderately noisy measures (such as typical survey questions) reliably produces spurious statistically significant correlations, and the effect can increase rather than decrease with N.
I think the interesting/useful thing to show (which I think is true) is that perception of victim hood is largely determined by personality rather than solely or primarily by actual victimhood. I agree that they don’t necessarily prove it; I’d posit though that arguing this doesn’t reduce ‘wokeness’ to a personality type; it merely forces its adherents to demonstrate their grievances empirically rather than relying on lived experience or subjective self-assessment.
Clearly Google does not observe this rule. Exhibit: Timnit Gebru.
Yet more proof that Trump never should have been hired to be President. Or dog catcher.
This is actually a good example. This personality type, if it exists, is not just a different name for wholeness.
Or wokeness either.
This sounds like paranoid personality disorder. Wikipedia says PPD is seen in 0.5% – 2.5% of the general population, but it may be rising and there are probably borderline forms.
“People who have a higher tendency for interpersonal victimhood feel victimized more often, more intensely, and for longer durations in interpersonal relations than do those who have a lower such tendency.”
Holy tautology.
Not a tautology if “[p]eople who have a higher tendency for interpersonal victimhood” are a “type” who can be identified with some sort of psychological test. If there is a way of predicting beforehand who will “feel victimized more often, more intensely, and for longer durations in interpersonal relations than do those who have a lower such tendency.”
But don’t let the anti-discrimination lawyers catch you.
TIV is no new personality type, it’s a negotiating ploy for employment lawsuit payouts.