Know someone who always 'plays the victim'? Psychologists now say it's a real personality type.
It's so deeply-ingrained, it affects everything in their lives.

Everyone has that person in their life who "always plays the victim." When something goes wrong it's "never their fault" and if you try to challenge them on the issue they get all "high and mighty" on you.
They're the type of person who does something wrong then tries to paint you as being the real problem for calling them out. Because their bad deed was just them making things even.
These people can be impossible to deal with because they're never wrong. This mentality also stunts their developmental growth, because when you're never wrong, you don't have to change a thing.
An October 2020 study by Israeli researchers Gabay, Hameirio, Rubel-Lifschitz, and Nadler has found that the "victim mentality" is a real and stable personality construct that influences how people make sense of the world around them.
These constructs are powerful to us because we use them to predict and anticipate events and, in turn, they influence our thoughts, behaviors, and feelings.
According to research, the victim mentality or, as they call it, "Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood," or TIV, is a stable construct that people can carry with them throughout their lives.
It's defined as "an ongoing feeling that the self is a victim, which is generalized across many kinds of relationships." That's why your friend with the victim mentality always plays the victim and everything that happens in the world is an affront to them.
Researchers say there are four main components to TIV:
Need for recognition – whereby individuals have a high level of need for their victimization to be seen and recognized by others
Moral elitism – seeing oneself as morally pure or "immaculate," and seeing those who oppose, criticize or "victimize" oneself as completely and totally immoral and unjust
Lack of empathy – having little empathy or concern for the suffering of others, because your own victimhood is so much greater than the suffering of others. Also includes an entitlement to act selfishly or harmfully towards others, without recognizing their pain or experience
Rumination – a strong tendency to brood and remain extremely fixated on times, ways, and relationships where they experienced victimization and being taken advantage of
A person who has TIV may be very vocal about their victim status whether it's caused by societal issues, a personal problem, or something they've fabricated. They believe their status affords them moral superiority to others and allows them to behave in ways that are unassailable.
"How dare you judge me? I am a ______ ."
People with TIV are also more likely to try to seek revenge on those who've aggrieved them.
This type of person is defined by, and clings to, their perceived trauma and weaponizes it against others. Scott Kauffman of Scientific American says that people can develop TIV without even "experiencing severe trauma or victimization."
Kauffman believes that people who have experienced trauma are capable of using it for healthy personal growth instead of unhealthy self-aggrandizement.
What if we all learned at a young age that our traumas don't have to define us? That it's possible to have experienced a trauma and for victimhood to not form the core of our identity? That it's even possible to grow from trauma, to become a better person, to use the experiences we've had in our lives toward working to instill hope and possibility to others who were in a similar situation? What if we all learned that it's possible to have healthy pride for an in-group without having out-group hate?
By coming to the concrete realization that this form of victim mentality is real it gives sufferers a greater ability to realize that they are living with an unhealthy personal construct that can be altered. It also gives those of us who have to deal with these people a better way to understand these frustrating people.
This article originally appeared on 12.11.20
There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for information—not just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimic…could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if they’ve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESL—but English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I don’t know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! I’m 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."
This article originally appeared in May.