Rejected Victimhood: The Consequences of Perceiving Society’s Rejection of your Collective Victimhood

The perception of collective victimhood is a common psychological barrier to conflict resolution. Adopting the identity of collective victim involves the consideration of two separate perceptions: (1) one’s own perception of collective victimhood, and (2) the perception that others recognize and acknowledge your victimhood, i.e., one’s metaperception of victimhood. What happens where there is a mismatch between one’s perception and metaperception of victimhood, in which one feels like their group is being victimized in society but that society does not acknowledge their victimhood? I call this rejected victimhood. In three correlational studies, I determine the existence of rejected victimhood within three conflict-ridden contexts: among Christians in Kaduna, Nigeria, within two samples of White Republicans in the U.S., and within a sample of White Democrats, to varying levels. Among those who feel like collective victims, I also find that rejected victimhood is consistently positively associated with negative intergroup attitudes towards the outgroup, as predicted. However, this pattern is not reflected in rejected victimhood’s relationships with support for violence. Interestingly, I find that when it comes to understanding support for violence, examining the perceptions and metaperceptions of victimhood as distinct constructs associated with separate cognitions may be more informative than focusing on rejected victimhood.