Individuals who frequently believe they have been victimized in their relationships with others are more likely to develop a vigilante mindset, according to a series of four studies. These studies, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, suggest that such individuals are more likely to construct a vigilante identity organized around monitoring their environment looking for signs of wrongdoing and delivering punishment
A vigilante is an individual who takes the law into their own hands and engages in acts of justice or retribution without the authority of law enforcement or the legal system. Vigilantes typically act on their perception of right and wrong and may seek to correct what they perceive as injustices or wrongdoing. While they may have noble intentions, their actions often fall outside the boundaries of the legal system, potentially causing harm, chaos, or further injustices.
New research reported that ordinary citizens sometimes adopt a vigilante identity and proceed to punish those they believe have done something wrong. This happens even though such citizens have no formal authority to deliver punishments and have not received permission to do so. However, it remains unclear what makes one adopt a vigilante identity.
Study author Fan Xuan Chen and his colleagues wanted to examine factors that might make individuals more likely to assume a vigilante identity. They hypothesized that perceiving oneself as a victim in relationships with others might make one more likely to adopt vigilante identity and motivate him/her to look for and correct social norm violations through punishment. To test this, they conducted a series of 4 studies.
The first study surveyed 221 participants from the United States using Amazon’s MTurk platform. The researchers measured participants’ self-identification with a vigilante role using the Vigilante Identity Scale and evaluated the association with their readiness to punish social norm violations. Participants were given a hypothetical scenario involving a professor accused of inappropriate conduct and were then asked if they would publicize or comment on a student’s allegations, actions considered punitive against the professor.
The second study investigated the correlation between self-perceived victimhood, measured by the Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood Scale, and the adoption of a vigilante identity. This identity was then assessed for its predictive value in determining participants’ propensity to monitor conflict-related behavior on social media. The participants, 541 Canadian university students, were presented with a hypothetical incident of alleged racism at a diner and asked to report their likelihood of tracking the story’s developments online.
In the third study, researchers used an economic game within an experimental setting to determine if those with pronounced vigilante identities were more punitive towards individuals violating norms. The 233 participants, recruited from MTurk, were tasked with deciding on imposing a financial penalty on a coworker depicted as breaching COVID-19 health regulations.
The fourth and final study involved 120 managerial-level employees from a prominent Chinese pharmaceutical company. The aim was to examine whether managers who perceived themselves as victimized in interpersonal relationships—and presumably more inclined towards a vigilante identity—were perceived by their subordinates as more punitive.
The findings from the first study revealed that individuals with a strong vigilante identity were more punitive. The second study supported the notion that individuals who viewed themselves as victims were more likely to embrace a vigilante identity and actively monitor social media for norm violations. The analysis suggested that vigilante identity partly mediated the relationship between self-perceived victimhood and the surveillance of social media for norm violations.
The third study corroborated the association between self-perceived interpersonal victimhood and the adoption of a vigilante identity. Moreover, those with a stronger vigilante identity showed a greater propensity to punish perceived norm violators. The fourth study echoed these findings, illustrating that managers who considered themselves victims were more likely to enforce harsher punishments.
“Our research advances vigilante scholarship by showing that people who tend to perceive themselves as perpetual victims in their interpersonal relationships are more likely to internalize a vigilante identity. In turn, this internalization predicts their willingness to closely monitor the environment for signs of wrongdoing and taking it upon themselves to punish alleged wrongdoers,” the study authors concluded.
The study sheds light on the roots and consequences of vigilantism. However, it also has limitations that need to be considered. Notably, save for the last study, all other punishment and vigilantism scenarios were fictional. No consequences stemmed from decisions participants made and participants were fully aware that the entire situation is hypothetical. Behaviors in real situations might not be the same.
The paper, ”Suffering saviors: Relationships between perceptions of interpersonal victimhood, the vigilante identity, and the monitoring and punishment of norm violators”, was authored by Fan Xuan Chen, Ekin Ok, and Karl Aquino.
