It Could Be Worse: Selective Evaluation as a Response to Victimization

TLDR

Victimization is perceived as aversive, prompting individuals to self‑enhance by selectively evaluating themselves and their circumstances, a process integrated with existing victimization literature. The authors propose a theory of victims' responses to victimization called Selective Evaluation. Selective Evaluation operates through five mechanisms—downward comparison, selective focus on advantageous attributes, imagining worse worlds, deriving benefits from the event, and establishing normative adjustment standards—that reduce the impact of victimization.

Abstract

A theory of victims' responses to their victimization, termed Selective Evaluation, is proposed. It is maintained that the perception that one is a victim and the belief that others perceive one as a victim are aversive. Victims react to this aversive state by selectively evaluating themselves and their situation in ways that are self‐enhancing. Five mechanisms of selective evaluation that minimize victimization are proposed and discussed: making social comparisons with less fortunate others (i.e., downward comparison); selectively focusing on attributes that make one appear advantaged; creating hypothetical, worse worlds; construing benefit from the victimizing event; and manufacturing normative standards of adjustment that make one's own adjustment appear exceptional. The theory is integrated with the existing literature on victimization, and possible functions of selective evaluation are discussed.