Sadistic pleasure influences victim blaming, study finds

A recent study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that individuals high in everyday sadism blame victims due to sadistic pleasure and reduced empathy. Further, these individuals showed reduced cognitive engagement in processing victim-related information.

The world is frequently marked by the suffering of others, from war victims to individuals facing bullying or sexual assault. Often, when we hear about such injustices, whether directly from someone we know or through media, we’re moved to feel empathy, compassion, or sympathy for the victims.

However, alongside these empathetic responses, there’s a surprisingly common and less compassionate reaction: blaming the victims for their own misfortune. This tendency stems from a belief that the world is inherently just, leading people to rationalize that victims must have done something to deserve their fate.

With this work, Claudia Sassenrath and colleagues venture beyond the conventional belief in a just world as the primary reason for victim blaming, focusing on the impact of everyday sadism—taking pleasure from witnessing or causing others’ pain.

Studies 1a to 1d used online questionnaires with 2,653 participants to explore if individuals high in everyday sadism are more prone to blame victims of various distressing scenarios, including sexual assault and bullying. These studies controlled for personality traits and dark triad characteristics, finding that sadistic pleasure and a lack of empathic concern were significant predictors of victim blaming. The findings held across different cultural contexts and among police officers.

Study 2 involved 314 participants and examined the behavioral implications of victim blaming in the context of sexual assault, focusing on the willingness to engage in effortful cognitive activity. Results showed that individuals high in everyday sadism remembered less information about a victim-perpetrator scenario, suggesting a reduced readiness to assist a person in need, likely due to increased victim blaming.

Study 3, with 776 participants, manipulated task instructions to see if altering the perceived purpose of recalling information about a sexual assault scenario (either as a measure of memory capacity or as a means to help future victims) would impact the relationship between everyday sadism, victim blaming, and effortful cognitive engagement. The manipulation did not significantly affect the outcomes, reinforcing the notion that higher levels of everyday sadism are associated with less effortful engagement in recalling information about victim-perpetrator scenarios.

Study 4 employed an ambulatory assessment with 273 participants over ten days to capture the real-life prevalence and implications of everyday sadism, sadistic pleasure, and victim blaming. This study confirmed the findings from the earlier studies in a real-world context, demonstrating that individuals high in everyday sadism are more likely to experience sadistic pleasure and engage in victim blaming, independent of their belief in a just world.

Additionally, this study explored the potential moderating effects of interpersonal closeness and the source of information on these relationships, finding that while these factors influenced the extent of sadistic pleasure experienced, they did not significantly alter the association between everyday sadism and victim blaming.

Combined, these studies highlight the influence of everyday sadism on the propensity to blame victims of misfortune, revealing that individuals high in everyday sadism are more likely to blame victims due to experienced sadistic pleasure and diminished empathic concern. This association persists across various contexts, cultural backgrounds, and even among professionals frequently encountering victim-perpetrator scenarios, such as police officers, emphasizing the robustness of these findings.

A limitation to this work is the reliance on cross-sectional, correlational data from online studies; thus, the researchers cannot infer causality.

The research, “I Like It Because It Hurts You: On the Association of Everyday Sadism, Sadistic Pleasure, and Victim Blaming”, was authored by Claudia Sassenrath, Johannes Keller, Dominik Stöckle, Rebekka Kesberg, Yngwie Asbjørn Nielsen, and Stefan Pfattheicher.